<p>^This should be a private business position, government that pays salary out of our taxes should not be involved with that.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP writes ^This should be a private business position, government that pays salary out of our taxes should not be involved with that. </p>
<p>It can’t really be a private business position because the activity is for a service on public lands. Sure you could contract it out and charge a fee for those who enter the park but that’s just playing around with who pays the tax and whether you call it a tax or a fee. </p>
<p>A lot of people want to cut government. But then they offset the cut in personnel by paying government contractors to do the same service. Companies who sell mainly to the US government are not more efficient than US govt employees. Often they cost a lot more.</p>
<p>^And I am still waiting for government to pay for my diamond ring. I have no plans to visit this park, if I am paying for somebody’s vacation, they should be paying for my ring. I do not see any difference. No land belong to government, land belongs to people. If people want to have a guide on land that belongs to them, they can hire a private guide. It is their choice as well as my choice to buy a ring. If nobody can afford either, then be it. As of now we cannot afford anything and many are against their tax money being redistributed to others. At least, I am. I want my SSN back and medicare taxes back and I will take care of myself as government is wasting my money, every penny of it as we speak, while functions that government is hired to perform, supporting army, control borders and getting criminals out of the streets are not performed to citizen’s satisfaction.</p>
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<p>You’ll have to take that up with the vast majority of Americans who support the idea of public lands open to the American people - rich and poor, white and black, young and old.</p>
<p>The national forests were established more than 100 years ago because private owners, more interested in short-term profit than long-term sustainability, were laying waste to the nation’s timber resources. The people of the United States wanted something done to stop it. So certain forest lands were preserved in government ownership.</p>
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<p>Under the Forest Service, these lands are managed for the present and the future, responsibly balancing the needs of various users while maintaining this resource for generations to come.</p>
<p>Are we perfect? Heck no. But I’ll take a Forest Service wilderness any day over a Georgia-Pacific tree farm. One I can hike through - the other, I’ll get arrested for setting foot upon.</p>
<p>^I am saying exactly the same, public lands belong and open to every American, not the government and should be open to private guides if any number of us decided to hire one for visitation. Tax money should not be spent on somebody’s vacation.</p>
<p>If you want to get rid of us wasteful socialist commie park rangers, I invite you to get that bill through Congress and signed by the president. Somehow, I don’t think that would be a very popular proposal, but you’re welcome to try.</p>
<p>Incidentally, my position is primarily funded by user fees, not tax dollars.</p>
<p>It would be quite hard to get around without common ways. Roads and waterways are an example.</p>
<p>There are lands that nobody wants to maintain too. Imagine a large park with fire and other risks. I cannot think of any societies in the past 2,000 years that didn’t have the concept of public spaces and roadways.</p>
<p>“get that bill through Congress” - you must be joking…when government adding more and more employees to its payroll and issuing more and more regulations to kill private business,…you want me to do what? Very funny …but at the end is extremely sad as nobody even realize where we are heading except for the few of us who have been there. It is not desirable place, nobody will like it, I can guarantee you that. But you do not have to listen if you are looking forward to have your own experinece, it is coming.</p>
<p>Ok, Chicken Little.</p>
<p>Back to the main topic I don’t think that this is a big exaggeration because 20k-40k is a lot of money for someone just starting out to pay back. My sister has $17,000 in loans and she hasn’t even graduated. She very stressed about it because it makes her credit score so low.</p>
<p>What incentive do educational institutions have to be fiscally responsible if they know that the Government will use taxpayer dollars and pay them off? Let’s say the government will give grants of $50K to every student - the only sure thing that will happen is that colleges will hike the tuition to a hundred grand. And I don’t really see why non-profits will behave any differently than the for-profits.</p>
<p>The fact that education costs have risen at a higher rate than inflation for decades suggests that there is opportunity in cutting that colleges are not being forced to do like the rest of society. The best way forward is not to let students of yesterday with debt off the hook so that the students of today are wary about acquiring debt forcing colleges to cut costs or not fill their classes. The risk of course is that some politician sees an opportunity of locking in this constituency by bribing them with our money.</p>
<p>Buyer beware.</p>
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<p>I recently toured numerous colleges, both public and private, with my S. The level of services and pristine conditions at all of them were astounding. Talk about college life differing from “the real world.”</p>