Would you support the opportunity to make voluntary NPS contributions on your income tax returns?

[OmahaBlueDog]

If you are fortunate enough to get a tax refund, you know that the government gives you an opportunity to part with some of your refund. You can, for example, apply your return to next years taxes. Or, you can buy savings bonds. You can contribute to deficit reduction.

One idea I think would be interesting is offering a line item where you can contribute part of your refund toward the National Park Service. Anyone who is non-disabled, non volunteering, and under 62 would receive an annual pass if $80 or more is contributed. (seniors, disabled, serving military, and volunteers receive discounted or free passes under separate programs). Contributions of any amount, however, would be welcome.

Is this something that you'd support?

In case you were wondering, here is what an annual pass gets you.....

A pass is your ticket to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites. Each pass covers entrance fees at national parks and national wildlife refuges as well as standard amenity fees at national forests and grasslands, and at lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation. A pass covers entrance and standard amenity fees for a driver and all passengers in a personal vehicle at per vehicle fee areas (or up to four adults at sites that charge per person). Children age 15 or under are admitted free.

[Historic NY]

1. It should be designated directly to a park or momument...

because the parks service shuffles funds, delay repairs, builds un-needs or wanted facilities and then crys when the place is falling down around them. I visit more than my fair share every year and many historic places take it on the chin. They then build mega-million dollar visitors centers which really serve no legitimate purpose except to decrease what is actually spent on the actual historic buildings. They did that in my state.

[OmahaBlueDog]

2. OK - I'll stipulate that as an option

..although that will tend to steer contributions toward well-known sites. Nothing wrong with that, but I like the lesser known parks and monuments as well.

[oldhippie]

3. No .....

I don't trust the IRS or the NPS to get or properly use the funds. Whatever I do, I'd rather do direct.

[OmahaBlueDog]

7. OK, but if you drive up to Yellowstone, and buy an annual pass

...isn't the net impact of your $80 contribution the same?

[oldhippie]

9. Yes, assuming the IRS .....

... actually transferred the funds to the NPS.

But I'm funny like that. I like to do things direct. I'm one of those silly people that actually goes to a bank teller every two weeks to get my spending money rather than use an ATM.

And, I am proud to say, the wife and I have been to every National Park west of the Mississippi. Tent camping mostly. Never had an annual pass, paid for each visit separately.

[OmahaBlueDog]

11. Damn, hippie!

That's quite an accomplishment.

I'm assuming you mean in the Continental US, or are you including Alaska & Hawaii? (great accomplishment either way -- just wondering).

[oldhippie]

13. Including Alaska and Hawaii .....

For the first thirty years of our marriage the only vacations my wife and son and I took were backpacking, canoe camping, or tent camping in National Parks. We went to a few places every year. The last ten years, as I got older, sleeping on the ground has lost it's appeal, and I like the cabins or hotels at the parks. My son didn't make the Alaska or Hawaii trips (he had to work) but I am sure he will someday.

Edit to clarify: I didn't get to all the NPs in Alaska. There are a bunch of them. But I got to Denali and Glacier Bay, the main ones.

[OmahaBlueDog]

14. Fair enough. Going up to the Brooks range is above/beyond the call of duty.

I'm sure you realize, as an OLD hippie, that you can now get an annual pass for something ridiculous like $12.

We went to Denali in '96 - amazing. Mrs. OBD and I enjoyed Yosemite from the comfort of the Wawona. I've been to Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Mt. Rushmore, Everglades, Carlsbad, and Arcadia. I've also been to many of the National Battlefields- Valley Forge, Manassas, Antietam, Gettysburg, Vicksburg.

I'm always struck by how much more there is to see!

[Zorra]

4. Yes, but it would be smarter to cut the defense budget in half and use a fraction of the savings

from that to support the NPS.

I'd prefer that my actual tax money went to constructive, and not destructive, services.

[OmahaBlueDog]

12. I'd like to find as many sources of funding for the NPS as possible.

In part to fund the parks & monuments that are more lightly attended.

I'm also for cutting defense. I'd start with a thorough overhaul of defense procurement procedures. That alone would save billions.

[eqfan592]

5. I would support it.

And sign up for it.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. No. This is the PTA bake sale defunding of the commons.

Public infrastructure is a national treasure, literally, and it's upkeep and development needs to be funded completely through tax revenue. Not by charity. By revenue.

[NightWatcher]

8. We're not going to only fund the "sexy" programs by charity

Parks are cool. The National Highway Traffic Safety Boards don't sounds as cool but are needed and vital. No one's going to contribute to the unsexy agencies.

[OmahaBlueDog]

10. While I take your point I'd make these counterpoints....

Right now, it's supported by user fees and tax revenue. So essentially, by allowing people to buy annual passes via tax return, you'd essentially just create another means of collecting user fees.

Also, realizing that the schools never really benefit from the lottery, the NPS could (I actually suspect would) raise more money doing this than they are allocated now. Ditto NASA. They are both programs whose popularity far exceeds their current levels of funding.

Finally, a bake sale could be really effective -- especially if held at the Old Faithful Lodge, the El Tovar, or the Wawona.

I suppose Half-Dome granite countertops are out of the question (Mrs. OBD throws things at me when I say that!)