Hightower Lowdown

America’s national parks are treasured for their majestic and spectacular beauty. But if you look around, you’ll notice something not so spectacular: rotting facilities, fewer visitor hours, closed areas, fewer rangers—all signs of a phenomenal national asset being allowed to deteriorate.

As a presidential candidate, George W. expressed his outrage at the failure to maintain our parks. In 2000, he staged a campaign event, with the Cascade Mountains as his backdrop, warning that our national parks are “at the breaking point” and vowing to eliminate the $5 billion backlog in needed maintenance.

Today, Ranger George is nowhere to be seen. The maintenance backlog is now $6 billion, and Bush even slashed 40% of the repair budget for the same mountain park that he’d used as a political backdrop. Instead of expanding our parks, as every president for the last century has done, George allowed national park space to shrink by 187,000 acres last year alone.

Fixing our national parks is but one of the crying needs that could have been met with a fraction of that $325 billion that Bush and Congress just took from our treasury and frivolously gave to the rich. To fight for our parks, check out the National Parks Conservation Association at www.npca.org.