1) Fox News is gleefully reporting that Interior Secretary Sally Jewell is cutting deals with the Republican Governor of Utah, Gary Herbert, to allow five National Parks in Utah to reopen in exchange for Herbert paying the wages of the Park Rangers. Similar offers
are being extended to several other Red States.
2) This severely UNDERMINES the Democratic position in the ongoing fight over
affordable healthcare, raising the federal debt and ending the shutdown of the federal
government.
3) No one wants to see Americans suffer. However, I think we agree that Americans should suffer equally and that the Red State voters --who sent the Republicans to Congress who in turn caused this shutdown -- should not receive special
relief from the effects of the shutdown.
4) Yet that is what Secretary Jewell is doing. Tourism plays a major role in the economies of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona and Tennessee -- Red states whose Representatives are almost all House Republicans. Closure of federal National Parks, National Recreational Areas and National Forests are the major way in which the pain of government shutdown is felt in those Red States. Every dollar that comes in from outside the state gets passed around 4 or 5 times as people selling to tourists buy in turn from other local businesses. When the spigot gets shut off, the multiplier makes the effect much larger than just the lost tourist dollars.
4) Big game hunting season opens in most states in November and I was waiting to see
what would happen when several million NRA members and Red State hunters found their hunting grounds closed. But the precedent set by Secretary Jewell will make it very difficult to keep the hunting grounds in the National Forests and Recreational areas closed.
5) What is it about some Democratic leaders that causes them to be so cowardly and craven-- and to betray their supporters and constituents? Millions of children in Democratic families around the country -- especially in the low income sections of our major cities -- are suffering deeply from the Republicans' cruel and irresponsible games. The black community has already endured an unemployment rate averaging 15% for the past 5 YEARS -- at the same time when Republican executives at Goldman Sachs were dividing up $Billions in bonuses handed to them out the back door of the US Treasury.
6) Yet Senator Cruz and the House Republicans can laugh at those suffering Democrats if Republicans will no longer feel the heat and hear outcries from their own constituents.
Even the State payments are a farce -- the first order of business in any House Republican budget will be a clause in which the federal government reimburses the Red States for those payments. Dick Cheney's Wyoming already gets twice as many federal dollars as it sends to Washington in taxes -- while its Republican Representatives bleat about "welfare queens" in our cities.
6) What White House aide was stupid enough to let this deal go through? And why doesn't that White House aide order a big tub of ice cream and a new $100 bill to be sent to every Red State voter while he is at it?
Update: I urge Kos readers to contact Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and ask her to halt these deals (the news stories for Utah says initial deal runs for 10 days).
The only contact I have for her is the Interior web site which has email
( feedback@ios.doi.gov ) , phone numbers and street addresses:
http://www.doi.gov/...