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posted by Fnord666 on Monday January 14 2019, @05:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the business-as-unusual dept.

Two weeks into the government shutdown, National Parks are starting to close. The public has been getting free access, since there are no employees to collect entrance fees of up to $35 per car. But neither are employees there to collect trash and clean bathrooms. So, with overflowing trash cans and toilets posing a threat to human health and safety, parks are shutting down.

But in the nation's oldest national park, Yellowstone, local businesses are pitching in to pay park staff to keep it open — or at least parts of it.

[...] Jerry Johnson owns a business that rents snowmobiles and sends seven guided tours a day into Yellowstone in the winter. He calls it 'the trip of a lifetime.' When the shutdown began, he received a big spike in phone calls from people who had already booked trips, and he didn't want to tell them their Yellowstone adventure was cancelled because politicians in Washington D.C. couldn't resolve their differences.

[...] "If you don't groom," explained Johnson, "the trails will get very rough, and you get bumps, moguls, in them, and it'll be — it's just miserable."
So, during the shutdown, private businesses that operate inside the park are picking up the tab — about $7,500 dollars a day to groom Yellowstone's 300-plus miles of snow-covered roads, and to keep one paved road open to cars. Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which runs the only hotels operating inside the park in winter, is paying most of that — paying park service employees to perform the same grooming duties they do under normal circumstances.

Xanterra asked the 13 guide services that operate in the park to chip in to help pay, and all of them did. It adds up to about 300 bucks a day for each of the guide services.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @07:08PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 14 2019, @07:08PM (#786572)

    USA goes private. This can only be good. Turns out after a year, nobody needed Washington. Next up: a government BY the people FOR the people. Whooda thunk?!

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday January 14 2019, @07:57PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday January 14 2019, @07:57PM (#786596)

    > Next up: a government BY some people FOR some people.

    FTFY
    Reality would like a word with your delusions.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 14 2019, @08:18PM (1 child)

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday January 14 2019, @08:18PM (#786605) Journal

    It would instantly be a much more popular move if withholding was pro-rated. If the federal government doesn't work for a couple months, Americans don't pay federal taxes for a couple months. If Congress didn't get paid over the same time period, they'd throw ticker-tape parades on Main Street all over the country.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @02:43AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 15 2019, @02:43AM (#786754)

      And then picked up by the MSM.

      If the people of the united states rebelled against taxes (maybe akin to the ORIGINAL boston tea party and the original members of the upstart tea party from a few years ago, before it was coopted...) we would be in a lot better position to hold congresscritters feet over the fire. State level services would continue except in states so broke they've been sucking aid out of the feds anyways, and we can all get back to spending our money where it matters, locally.