The GOP’s Big Yellow Taxi Syndrome

[marmar]

from In These Times:


The GOP’s Big Yellow Taxi Syndrome
Now that sequester cuts have kicked in, Republicans are realizing they’ve paved paradise.

BY Leo Gerard, United Steelworkers President


Republicans are suffering grievously from the syndrome that singer Joni Mitchell memorialized in the hit “Big Yellow Taxi” in 1970. The chorus says it all:

Don’t it always seem to go

That you don’t know what you’ve got

Till it’s gone

They paved paradise

And put up a parking lot

Republicans bellyached for years that government must shrink. It had to be smaller. Cut the budget come hell or high water, they yammered. Well, darn if the sequester hasn’t brought hell and high water to Republican districts across America. Now Republican lawmakers can’t stop carping about how small government shouldn’t occur in their districts. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till you vote to kill it?

Paradise was among the first to go. Specifically, the paradise of American parks. The National Park Service, complying with the mandate that it slash about 9 percent of its budget through September, reduced hours, cut staff and stopped providing some services such as campgrounds, based on recommendations from each park superintendent.

Among the campgrounds shut down are those at Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota. The state’s Republican Senator John Thune is feeling particularly grumpy about that. He accused the Park Service of closing his campgrounds instead of cutting wasteful and duplicative spending, examples of which he neglected to offer. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/14809/gop_suffers_big_yellow_taxi_syndrome