NO the tax payers own the land. WE pay the bills so we own the land they just protect it. Since the government had no right to close us off from public lands they all should be fired. The Head of the Forst Service, Nat'l Park should have stood forward and demanded they the President had no Right what so ever to shut down the lands the Tax payers own. WE pay for the up keep, and the salaries. Its the problem very few people will stand up for what's RIGHT. Tim
Is not (one core) problem in the US that it is actually not (only) the tax-payers that pay for things (and thus owns it)? You seem to be maxing out your credit cards, meaning that China and other nations (in the end) will "own" your land?
There seems to be fundamentally two ways to avoid this:
1: pay more tax
2: reduce spending
(there probably are some other options, like "attack some middle-eastern country and seize their oil", but lets not get into that)
I am endlessly fascinated by the US. We share so much culture (movies, games, the internet) that one might think that we are the same people. Yet, in many ways we seem to live on different planets. How is it possible for a two-party system to have so much apparent hatred for the other party? How is it possible to have so much apparent hatred for your allies and commercial/cultural partners ("socialist hell Sweden")? How is it possible to think that sending your boys out to die in an unjust and massively expensive war on the other side of the globe is ok, but giving all people basic health-care or denying people access to automatic weapons (that no-one could think about at the time of your constitution, neither could they envision nuclear weapons) is a crime that should be punished by any means necessary? What are the mechanisms that led to US restaurants advertising the weight of their burgers/steaks as a prominent feature?
Whatever the stance on US healthcare (and frankly, it is not my health nor my money), I think that this situation has been a sad thing for the US politicial system, as well as both parties.
-h