Reader comments
$2.4 billion budget proposed for U.S. Park Service

FINALLY! Money for our National Parks, it is about time. Our National Park system has been severely negelected for years and many buildings, etc. are in poor shape. Now the money needs to be budgeted annually, not just for special occasions.

More money for parks sounds good but the reality is more money to shuffle paperwork.

As a frequent user of National Park lands and facilities, I agree with RH that much improvement is needed. But I worry that too much will be spent on administration and not enough on, say, picnic tables and park roads. Too often in big government bureaucracies the bureaucrats spend money on themselves, their staff, and their offices. I hope that does not happen here.

As a frequent user, one time employee, who still maintains contacts with the Park Service, I can assure you that they have never been as neglected as they have been under the Bush Administration. There has been a never-ending round of downsizing staffs and loss of monies. I don't believe for a microsecond that the Bush Administration will change their disastrous policies.
As a park service employee you know, but do it discreetly.

Don't blame Pres. Bush for every woe! Your politics are showing. Re-examine the role of Congress in budgets, and reflect on those golden Clinton years when the downslide began.

My politics are born of my observations. The people I know who worked in the Park Service did so through the Clinton and Bush years. They fared reasonably well in the first, but the Bush Administration has consistently defunded and underfunded the NPS at every turn. The only politics visible here is an administration that doesn't give a rip about national parks.