California Budget Crisis

California's Budget Crisis and The Parks

The editorialist in this article explains the current California budget crisis that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger intends to correct by creating multibillion dollar budget cuts that will affect the citizens of California in multiple aspects of daily life. The author explains much about the particular budget cuts that affect the state's national parks. He uses this issue as his example that "some (cuts) do less for the budgetary bottom line than others" which reflects his opinion that it is unnecessarily harmful to the environment and recreation to only save $213 million out of a $26 billion deficit. And if the parks are to be reopened after a two year period, the state will end up paying even more money in order to fix what time has only harmed. So the money that the state saved in two years will be the money that is used to correct the problem that they themselves initially created by not preserving the parks, thus making the cut pointless. This idea looks environmentalists dead in the face; their parks will not be preserved in order to bring what seems like a penny in. Without more opposition from these citizens, the bill will be passed.
But this poses a problem. Although the savings is minimal, if it isn't brought in from closing the state's parks, then the money will still be taken from somewhere. What if it's taken from somewhere which creates more of an uprising among more people? Education perhaps? The author does nothing to refute that point. Yes, the cut may seem unnecessary, but a small amount of money is taken from the park aspect, it's better that then education. But, it would benefit the author's argument if he were to pose the possibility of the money be taken from a more important resource.