This week, it was announced that budget cuts would now include canceling the Mars missions. However, Rep. Cliff Steans (R-FL) wants to go further. In a recent speech, Steans called for the selling off of national park lands. We have previously seen states sell off park lands, government buildings and other property — even as we burned hundreds of billions in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In a town hall meeting Belleview, Florida, on February 25 that Steans stated “we don’t need any more national parks in this country” and that we need to “actually sell off some of our national parks.” That is a remarkable proposal since national parks are the most successful program in the government with rising demands of citizens visiting parks and sites. One would think we would be expanding the parks not cutting off one of the most popular government programs.
Here is the full statement:
I got attacked in a previous town meeting for not supporting another national park in this country, a 200-mile trailway. And I told the man that we don’t need more national parks in this country, we need to actually sell off some of our national parks, and try and do what a normal family would do is — they wouldn’t ask Uncle Joe for a loan, they would sell their Cadillac, or they would take their kids out of private schools and put them into public schools to save to money instead of asking for their credit card to increase their debt ceiling.
Putting aside the thousands of jobs and millions of recreational hours supplied to citizens through these parks, we continue to show a bizarre sense of priority in sending billions abroad to fund wars in countries with growing anti-American sentiments. Instead of saving hundreds of billions of dollars, we will instead continue to cut educational, scientific, and environmental programs that protect our future.
Source: Think Progress as first seen on Reddit
Gene,
Evidently, Neil doesn’t think that Kansas was a state when Obama’s mother was born there in 1942.
Gene, if you are able to provide some actual critical scrutiny to the issue of Minor v. Happersett, I would love to see what it is.
Idealist, Swathmore mom posted a video pertaining to the birther issue, which is what I was responding to. And Minor v. Happersett is the only Supreme Court case in which the Constitutional meaning of “natural-born citizen” is addressed. The opinion of Minor Court states:
“At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.”
It is common knowledge that President Obama’s father was never a U.S. citizen. If you wish to disagree with this, fine. But instead of calling names and simply dismissing my argument as ridiculous based on the fact that most people would disagree with it, you should provide a logical argument against it so we can all learn from the discussion, including myself.
Do you even know what an evidentiary standard is, Neil? Apparently not or you’d realize you are fighting a battle you cannot win. Birthers are dismissed here because we’ve heard it all before – including Minor v. Happersett – and none (as in not a single one) of the Birther arguments has ever withstood critical scrutiny. So either we can cater to your delusional understanding of citizenship and allow you to create a distraction that we all know leads precisely to Birthers being full of crap or we can cut to the chase and dismiss you as the crackpots you are. There are a lot of legitimate criticisms of Obama – the least of which is he’s violated the Constitution every bit as much as Bush and Cheney and then some – but his citizenship isn’t one of them. Birtherism is thinly veiled racism and an argument with zero legal merit.
Neil D.
Are you a sock puppet?
You remind me of someone else here who comes in full of off-topic BS and plasters it everywhere.
As Bdaman would say: “you’re off-topic, and should be beaten……remind me to do so when I finish my own OT rant.”
BTW haven’t heard of this decision in the great “is he or isn’t he” debate.
Do elucidate. You’re the unrequited scholar here. PUSS PUSS
So, I state a factual point, you attack me personally by calling me a vulgar name, you don’t address the point that I stated, and therefore everyone should ignore me.
I was expecting more legal scholarship from readers of a blog such as this. Have you even read what the Supreme Court has had to say about what a natural-born citizen is? I suppose not.
Jill, (There is a deliberate fire sale of public assets going on . . .) , your post is very well articulated.
What Gene H. said.
BFM says:
“Solving the federal deficit problem in the long run means solving a hand full of very serious problems. The growth of health care costs is one the most significant, if not the most significant problem that has to be solved. ”
Only one solution. Get the insurance companies out of the equation.
And get a central buyer of medicine who has the big buyer leverage to use against Big Pharma.
The single payer system does that, covers all, and is fully controlled and financed. Even in definitely non-socialist countries like Germany. And in our socialist cradle to grave sloth encouraging country of Sweden (as you would probably say) it works too.
Our health care is assured in the future our costs are half yours nationally per person, so why are economic wise people like yourselves so scared of letting government do it. One bit of news, it isn’t the government here, it is the bureaucracy which was first established in 1600s and has been trusted to do what it is supposed to do. However there are overseers there too.
The UN loaned one of ours for a while.
Frankly,
That’s a terrible thing to say about pustules.
Thank you for this:
“Are you aware, Swathmore, that according to the U.S. Supreme Court, President Obama is not a natural-born citizen per Minor v. Happersett (1874) due to the fact that his parents were not U.S. citizens?”
You have proven yourself to be a mindless inflamed boil on the buttocks of the nation. Any opinion expressed by you can safely be ignored as the effluent spewed from a pustule.
bigfatmike,
“Selling National Parks is not a good idea because in the current term it is not necessary and in the long run it does not help.”
Yep. Really good post.
BFM,
Interesting reasoning, out of my depth:
“In the current and near term we have debt largely due to the current economic recession and ‘shock absorber’ expenses like unemployment insurance”
You don’t suppose that Georges unfinanced wars had anything to do with the debt? Only 4 trillion I’ve heard mentioned.
Would cutting “defense” (offense) expenses help matters radically?
And don’t come back with greater unemployment. There are things to do at home other than deliver 1400 dollar coffee pots, and 25 dollar scotch tape rolls to the wars.
Downeastliberator said:
“Dollars to donuts Stearn’s benefactors want to own ONF for their private game preserves”
—————————
Yep, why didn’t I see that. Are you a local?
They say that corruption (charity) begins at home. In this case rewards for his sponsors.
How in the hell do you fight this?
There isn’t a town, a cong district, a state that isn’t infested and infected and controlled by these swine.
If we could see who your banks loan to, and against what security, etc, it would tell us a lot—-but commercial secrets you know.
So we’re back on the Stearn thread, but the problem is all over the USA.
Neil Davis has a reasonable question: ‘why is selling National Parks and other federal assets such a horrible idea?’
To see why selling federal lands is a bad idea we need to look at the federal deficit.
Federal debt is really bi-modal. In the current and near term we have debt largely due to the current economic recession and ‘shock absorber’ expenses like unemployment insurance. Reasonable tax rates – notice I did not say soak the rich – and increased economic activity will largely resolve these deficits. In the current and near term it is not necessary to sell government lands to solve the government debt problem.
The second big bump in the federal deficit builds over the next several decades. Over the next 50 years or so the federal deficit will increase due to a few types of expenses such as growth in the cost of health care and funding for social security.
Some would argue that social security does not contribute to the national debt. That argument gets into a bunch of hair splitting, mind numbing definitions that I will leave to others. I think we can say with out fear of contradiction, that there is a real challenge coming related to how the society will provide social security with fewer than two workers to fund the benefits for each retiree. Fortunately, we have a decade or so to figure out that very serious question.
The real driver of government deficits, over the next 50 years or so, is the growth in the cost of health care. The congressional budget office has released projections that by 2089 health care products and services would consume 99% of all economic activity. The implication is that there would be nothing left over to produce food, shelter, energy – you get the idea. This is, of course, impossible.
The question is not whether we will change the way we provide health care in this country. The question is whether we will manage that change in a thoughtful and efficient manner.
The reason why it is a really bad idea to sell federal forests and national parks is that the sale will not solve our deficit problem. The federal government could sell every thing, every forest, every park, every desk, lamp and chair and the returns would be lost in the round off error related to the mountain of debt that will build over the next several decades.
Solving the federal deficit problem in the long run means solving a hand full of very serious problems. The growth of health care costs is one the most significant, if not the most significant problem that has to be solved.
Selling National Parks is not a good idea because in the current term it is not necessary and in the long run it does not help.
As usual, nothing gets from to you. No more replies. GFY.
Bdaman 1, March 13, 2012 at 1:24 pm
P.S. nice job on hijacking the thread. This thread is about Cliff Stearns and the idea of selling federal lands to pay down debt.
Do you see your name anywhere.
Guilty conscience eh ?
Bdaman,
You provide such nice targets. Have you been a carney?
As for Mississippi, would’nt you as a white (?) person too?
As for jacking you should know. But checking shows that I was following others comments, not pushing anything than commenting Jill. etc.
Poll: Obama’s a Muslim to many GOP voters in Alabama, Mississippi
Reporting from Washington—
After years of battling false claims and viral emails alleging that he is a Muslim, President Obama hasn’t gotten far among Republican voters in Alabama and Mississippi – about half still believe he is Muslim and about 1 in 4 believes his parents’ interracial marriage should have been illegal, a new poll shows.
The automated survey by Public Policy Polling, conducted over the weekend in advance of Tuesday’s GOP primaries in both states, showed Republicans Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich locked in a three-way battle for votes.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-poll-obamas-a-muslim-to-many-gop-voters-in-alabama-mississippi-20120312,0,334348.story
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/us/politics/unions-plan-a-door-to-door-effort-for-2012-election.html Labor issues will be a source of partisanship this election too, idealist.