I lived in Malibu Canyon for several years during the late 80s and early 90s and I like to check in from time to time to see what is happening in the best neighborhood in Southern California. From your headline, “State parks under threat of privatization,” I see it’s the same issues as we must deal with in Washington. Run-away and wanton privatization of public property. This is how it works up here with our State Parks. First, right wing demagogues rant in the local liberal media that government is wasting money and that taxes must be cut. With the infusion of millions of private money and lobbying, taxes are cut by voter referendum or legislative fiat. Then, government runs out of money and public services and parks are cut. Concessionaires are brought in, whether it be to provide public health care or maintain roads or parks. Finally, state and local government says, “We don’t have the money. We have to privatize.”
But you must wonder why are taxes being cut when any citizen can see it is not in their best interests to deny government a decent operating budget. It seems to me that it’s in order to impoverish government and allow business to take control of every facet of government that touches money. This impoverishment is accomplished in many ways beside cutting taxes. It’s done by overloading one department over all the rest. For instance, in King County, where Seattle is located, funding is being cut in large part because the criminal justice system gobbles up over 85% of the yearly budget. Clearly, someone thinks courts and jails are more important than everything else. With this forced impoverishment of governmental services that should be provided to taxpayers, the people are suffering while many millions are being made by a select few.
In fact, government around here is so busy engaging in “Public-Private Partnerships,” they can’t turn over public property fast enough to satisfy their partners. In the long run, while the profiteering upon the backs of taxpayers continues, I must wonder why we can’t keep the public property under control of the public and simply privatize our tax-cutting politicians. Oh, right. They’ve already been privatized.
Peter Stekel
Seattle