Colorado National Monument: Make it a National Park? Yes or No.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by bluescreen73

Depends on your economic/political ideology, but if we're going to spend money on public works, the national park system should be at or near the bottom of the totem pole.

The transportation, electrical, natural gas, and water infrastructure in this country is rotting and falling apart from decades of neglect. The latest "stimulus" funds for infrastructure were largely a joke and a band-aid at best.

I disagree. Any country that can not maintain its historical and natural heritage is not much of a country, in my opinion. Those things are as important as a decent national infrastructure. The problem in this country is that the government has squandered untold hundreds of billions (trillions?) of dollars on the unsustainable and hugely capital-inefficient highway/automobile-centric infrastructure to the point that it is sopping up most of the infrastructure capital available in this country. No one wants to go after that "elephant in the living room," but would rather snipe at the sniveling amount spent to maintain our national parks and public lands.

As for Colorado National Monument--leave it a National Monument. Believe it or not, visitor numbers at Colorado's two newest National Parks--Black Canyon and Great Sand Dunes--actually went DOWN after their designation as National Parks. Increasing visitation numbers was sold as the major reason for re-designating them, but is apparently is not working.

[CosmicWizard]

skoro wrote:

Folks in the Grand Junction area truly have a natural treasure.

Yes we do, and it's almost right in my back yard.