Mark Souder: “first before I discuss what I intend to discuss here for a few minutes, a matter of importance, the National Park…”

“first before I discuss what I intend to discuss here for a few minutes, a matter of importance, the National Park System, let me make a brief comment on capital gains. Depending on when the effective date of the capital gains cut came in, it is unlikely that a whole lot of people in the stock market have capital gains. But we are also looking at real estate questions, at companies expanding. And the idea that somehow we will spend our way out of a recession, rather than grow our way out, is backwards. If we do not have real substantive incentives to get people back to work in all sectors of our economy, we are in deep trouble in this economy. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about demonstration fees. This was supposedly a test to see whether it would relieve the financial pressures on our national parks. At some point, either this demonstration has worked or it has not. It is time to either make them permanent or remove them. In fact, we have had very few complaints, almost none at most parks. The fees range from $10 to $30 to enter the park, negligible compared to most entertainment in America. Fees for special services for those related costs, camping, back country expenses, are logical because the money goes directly to pay for those expenses. These fee dollars have helped supplement the park's complete projects efforts. For example, 6 percent in 1999 of Yellowstone Park's revenue were from the demonstrations fee.”