ANOTHER KOCH SPONSORED ATTEMPT, DOOMED TO FAIL

The Brothers Grimm:  Charles & David Koch

Yes, they will spend millions in trying to steal America’s treasures.

 

I had hoped that we had seen and heard the last from Mr. Big Bucks, Mitt Romney.

But now “Mr. 47%” has opened his mouth again and really ticked me off.  No, it’s not about “Binders full of women”, or “My wife drives a couple of Cadillacs….” or even “Self-deportation”.

Since Mitt has now taken the role as the multimillionaire, senior statesperson of the GOP, he has now really stepped in it by saying,, “I don’t know why the US government owns so much land…..what is the purpose?”

What Romney was referring to was regarding the millions of US acres that are tied up in America's public parks, federal forests, government seashores, wilderness areas, historic lands and land preserves.

Once again, Romney has shown that he still lacks the ability to understand or communicate with the average, working American. 

This wealthy Republican apparently doesn’t understand the purpose of these public lands.  A purpose by-the-way that was started by the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln set aside the first public land in 1864 when he designated California’s Yosemite Valley as a state park expressly to be, “held for public use of resort and recreation”.

Oh, and it was another Republican president, Theodore Roosevelt who reserved 280,000 square miles of public land.  That's the same area as the state of Texas.  This was set aside for future generations of Americans.  In 1905, “Teddy” Roosevelt wrote, “Our people should see to it that America’s national parks are preserved for their children and their children’s, children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.”

As the progressive writer, Jim Hightower wrote about Mr. Romney, “Sir, these properties are there for “us”.  That means those millions of work-a-day American families who don’t summer in the South of France or have a getaway ski mansion over-looking Aspen.”

As compared to what the Romney’s and the Koch Brothers would prefer, these properties are not there to become a theme park, a strip-mine, a mall, an oil field or any property that produces one cent in profit for a group such as Koch Industries or Romney’s previous Bain Capital Corporation.

So, are these public properties really that important to most Americans?

Well, for those Americans that do not have a portfolio of millions of bucks, last year our national parks had 292 million visitors.  That’s 19 million more than the previous year.

This year is the Centennial of the American National Park Service (NPS) and is expected to be even busier.

The issue is that today, so far not one of the current presidential hopefuls, (and we have a pot-load of them), not one has had one thing to say about making an issue of our park’s dilapidated facilities.  They have not mentioned what they would do regarding the shortened park hours, closed off park sections, locked park visitor centers, cancelled Summer programs, park ranger shortages, pot-holed park roads and on and on.

I, and many Americans are continuing to grow angry, as these politicians will subsidize wealthy people’s private jets, yachts, and their multiple vacation homes with tax cuts, while they constantly cut funds for public parklands.

But now, they are going way too far, and once again, the Billionaire Koch Brothers are at the heart of it.

Two Koch Brothers-funded groups, ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and the Americans for Prosperity are teaming up to re-instate an almost dead-horse issue called “state’s rights”.  Yep, with their pockets stuffed with big bucks from the Koch Brothers and big oil, these groups are going after all federally owned lands and pushing for them to be transferred back to the states.  These are the haters of the US government and their campaign to “take back” federal lands.

So, guess which Republicans have joined the sponsors of this proposed bill referred to as the “Sagebrush Rebellion Act”?

Well, it’s no surprise that the wacko-bird,Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and the former Pennsylvania Senator, Rick Santorum, have both been pushing similar “take-back” bills.

But fortunately there are 4 reasons why this probably won’t work.  The 4 reasons are:

1.     None of the states have the money to support taking over these vast pieces of land.

2.     The idea was to privatize the parks for raising big bucks for the states.  But public opinion is totally against putting “private property” signs up that locks out the public from swimming, camping, fishing, or hunting,

3.     As Jim Hightower wrote, “Their pipedream is enormously unpopular with normal people who don’t wear tri-cornered hats with tea bags dangling from them.”  It was found that 95% of the voters agree that protecting national parklands is an appropriate role for the federal government.  And 9 out of 10 Republican voters also agreed and 96% of all Americans want universal access to all public lands.

4.     Finally, the “state’s rights” claim is pure B.S..  When the states joined the Union, they all signed agreements that renounced claims to the federal public properties.  The agreed statements say “ the people inhabiting said proposed state do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof.”

It is shameful as to what this small group of wealthy profiteers are attempting.  These treasures of our public lands belong to us all and to attempt to take them away would become a Battle for America’s Public Soul.

We will never allow this to happen.

Copyright G.Ater  2015