I was just reading a book from one of my favorite series; Uncle Johns Bathroom Reader. This one is the National Parks edition, and it got me to thinking about the incredible National Parks we have in this country. They are the Crown Jewels of our nation, and we should be doing more maintain, enlarge, protect, and advertise them. Some TARP money could go a long way to solve this.
Let's jump
Now, some people might be wondering about the whole "advertise" thing. But let me assure you it is important. Not just to the Parks, but to the economy as well. The more people who visit the Parks, the more money they make, the more people they can hire. Win. Win. Win. I rarely hear commercials on the radio for any of the Parks, but I don't own a TV, and haven't for years, so can't speak for TV advertising. Anybody else with a TV see many commercials for the Parks? And what about overseas? We should advertise the hell out of our Parks overseas right now. The world, for the most part, is in love with our President, so why not put the Parks on that bandwagon. The economy is down, but there are still people who can afford to fly here, and they probably would with a little incentive. Say, half price admission and facilities. Half is better than none. Anybody living outside of the US have any say about that. How often do you see advertising for the National Parks in foreign lands? We should also increase the advertising aimed at minorities in this country. They statistically and historically don't go to the Parks as often as non-minorities. And since the minorities will soon be the majorities, it is important for the future of the Parks that they begin to value them.
The other three things, maintaining , enlarging, and protecting are also good for the economy. We need to hire more Park Rangers to maintain the parks we have. Put some people to work, sounds good to me. And if we make them bigger, then we will need to hire more people to do that. Surveyors to start with, and I'm sure a lot more. And once they are bigger, we can hire more rangers. Then to protect them we need, more rangers.
All I'm saying is that it is time to spend some money on things that matter. Don't even get me started on renewable energy.