Prop 21: Why Californians don't need a car tax to save their state parks

Once considered the best in the nation, California's state parks are falling apart due to chronic underfunding and mismanagement. The park system has a backlog of $1 billion in deferred maintenance and, last year, 150 of California's parks closed part-time or suffered service reductions.

What's the solution? Supporters of Prop 21 believe that the answer lies in a new car tax. If Prop 21 passes in November, California drivers will have to pony up an additional 18 bucks when they register their cars. In exchange, California drivers will be able to use state parks during the day without paying an entrance fee.

Does it make sense to tax drivers to subsidize park users? What's the alternative?

We went to Sedona, Arizona and met with Warren Meyer of Recreation Resource Management. As Meyer explained, California doesn't need a car tax to save its parks. Instead, California should contract with private park management companies that can manage parks more efficiently than public agencies while actually paying rent to the government for the right to do so.

Approximately 7.5 minutes. Produced by Paul Feine and Alex Manning.

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[royalorleanshk]

great vid! leave it to reason.tv to cover the important issues and provide ACTUAL SOLUTIONS -- not tax increases --

[Gamermatt99]

rofl

[Ben Steele]

First, I've noticed that people lacking in intelligence and rationality tend to attack the person instead of the substance of the argument. Second, do any of you people think about what you read before making stupid comments? I wasn't arguing against the amendments. I'm all for the constitution being amended to deal with unforeseen problems or changes in society, but that isn't strict adherence to the constitution as an unchanging document like the Ten Commandments.

[vitriolix]

This is pure propaganda. Basically an infomercial for this private parks company. You never explained how the private firm makes its revenue. There must be a down side to this deal, and you make no effort to address it at all. Also, how about an interview with, say, someone who doesn't agree with your position who works in the California State Parks system. No, that would be way to "reason"able.

[joshv89]

So instead of the tax payer giving money to some useless environmental agency its going to some lucky dude who probably bribed some government official to get unprecedented access to a easy source of revenue,nice................pi­ty the minarchist let live the Anarchist!!

[Claymore5by5]

@CLRubyHypatia You are absolutely correct in that should be allowed to go under. Unfortunately, they won't be allowed to fail. The Chosen One will step in save them from themselves using our money. Of course, they won't be forced to change the spending habits that caused the problems in the first place.

[kostasmitros1]

Come and live in Greece, if you wanna get an idea what "big gov" really means...

[nirvgardengod]

i dont trust this fast-talking dude

[CurtHowland]

"Sell Yellowstone? Yosemite? The Grand Canyon?"

Should never have been expropriated by the govt in the first place.

All govt does is increase conflict. Such beauty becomes a matter of political fighting, corruption.

Were you alive in 1994 when the very first thing the FedGov budget "impass" did was close the parks? The Arizona governor showed up to the G.C. with a staff and said, "It's ok, we'll run it, it won't cost you a penny.

They were rejected. Why? B/c money was not the issue.

[Ben Steele]

I'm not saying big govt is the best solution. I'm just saying it was an attempted solution to a real problem that existed prior to big govt. That said, I don't know what the best solution would be. I just know that 19th century capitalism couldn't have continued as it was. Something had to change either within capitalism or within the govt. One point we might or might not disagree about is that if there was a strict adherence to the constitution slavery would never have ended.