Utah state parks pass increase

[RonPaulFan]

My thinking on our public lands is it is already ours and ours to use. Combine that with the understanding that the power to tax is the power to destroy. Essentially the "fees" are taxing us for what we already own as if government owns what is public land and is "selling us" the use of what is already ours by means of abuse of power. Listen to the audio file where they tell us how good a deal it is for $150 to use the parks. Sure, our parks are an amazing wonder of our Creator's creation, but government didn't create them. The parks are already ours! We own them. A theme is pervasive throughout: "The operating structure has changed from a typical government service to a business-like model ..." (first sentence of their "Agency Explanation" as quoted from the full text above). It is NOT business! A business would own something and charge us to use it or charge us to buy it. State Parks are already ours. Their "business model" is raising taxes to pay for more services and more government (businesses expand) as if they are selling us something. But, we aren't going there because of their services. Instead, we are tolerating fees to use what is already ours and we go to our parks to get away and not to have even more government in our lives. Once they have a high price "service" they prohibit alternatives to force paying for their monopoly by forcing concentration of camping into a small area and closing the rest. I commented similarly in this article (click comments to open and see two from me using my name, Ronald Levine): https://www.ksl.com/article/46764153/cam...is-it-safe
Further, they intend to compete with free enterprise saying "it takes money to make money (audio file linked in my above post)," but that money comes from us. Listening to the audio file, they are sounding like salespeople selling us a product. Regarding business, our State Parks and our recreation using them is huge boon business and our Utah economy, but consider the power to tax is the power to destroy. Sure, government might technically "make money" competing with private business with us paying them to do that with increased fees, but the real cost is multiplied by the harm to this sector of Utah economy by creating a disincentive to use our State Parks by creating a drain on the very thing that supports a robust recreational economy. That would reduce our very much larger private economy with less use of our public lands all so government can "profit" to support it's growth and intrusion into what is already ours with use as a monopoly as if they own public lands. If these government bureaucrats want to "make money" in business, they should quit their jobs working for us as public servants and invest their own money into their own private businesses.

Related posts with our discussions on cost:

(In these I comment on the high cost of camping at Sand Hollow and the monopolistic and punitive ways they use to force us to use their high-cost crowded camping when primitive camping away from things and without fees of nearly the price of motel in a city is more desirable. It interferes with the real camping experience I and many others want.)

https://bigfishtackle.com/forum/showthre...+hollow%22

https://bigfishtackle.com/forum/showthre...+hollow%22

https://bigfishtackle.com/forum/showthre...+hollow%22

https://bigfishtackle.com/forum/showthre...ght=hollow