Political Quotes

“I commend the Senator from Wyoming for a very powerful statement on the subject of the starvation, from a budgetary standpoint, of the national parks. He is surely, surely correct on that issue. Mr. President, I hope all of my colleagues, and the people in the executive branch, will listen to his very strong plea on what we have done to the National Park Service, because we are starving the National Park Service. And whatever happens to this bill, the National Park Service on today's budgetary timeline is due to be starved. This bill is not going to, really, add very much to that one way or the other. What the Congress needs to do is respond and more generously fund the National Park Service, because little by little it is in fact being starved. I submit to my colleagues that at less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the Federal budget, the National Park Service is hardly contributing to the Federal deficit. If you put it to the American people, 'do we want to adequately fund the National Park Service,' I believe in overwhelming numbers they would say yes, we want to fund the National Park Service. They do not have any doubt about that. That is one reason why I proposed legislation which would grant to the National Park Service additional funds for acquisition of parks way beyond just this individual park--way beyond that. I hope we will be able to bring to the attention of Senators and of Members of Congress, that the National Park Service is in bad shape.”