Theodore Roosevelt said the national parks were the greatest gift this country ever gave itself, and the greatest idea we ever gave the world.
More than 100 nations copied it.
Donald Trump looks at that gift and sees a piggy bank for his own pet projects.
This week we learned where our national park money has been going. Not to Yellowstone. Not to Yosemite. To the walkway outside his office, where Trump ripped out American flagstone and laid down Italian granite at a cost of $689,000 to taxpayers. He said he paid for it himself.
That was a lie.
To cover his vanity projects, they are robbing the parks. Spending on parks outside Washington is down $854 million. More than 900 projects went unfunded. They even pulled money from a guardrail on a Colorado cliff that the Park Service flagged as a safety hazard.
I serve on Appropriations.
The power to spend belongs to Congress, not to a king redecorating his palace. These parks are not Trump’s to loot.
They belong to all of us, and I will fight for every dollar.
Just got off the phone with my college roommate.
His daughter was diagnosed with leukemia in January.
He has insurance. Good insurance. The kind you feel safe having.
7 months later:
Savings: wiped out. 401k: cashed early. Penalties and all. House: refinanced to cover the gaps insurance decided weren’t their problem.
He told me he’s not the same person anymore.
Said watching your child fight for her life while simultaneously fighting an insurance company over coverage codes does something to you that doesn’t go away.
They did everything right.
Two incomes. No debt. Responsible their whole lives.
One diagnosis undid all of it in 7 months.
And somewhere a health insurance CEO is getting a $30 million bonus this quarter.
I don’t know how people defend this system with a straight face.
I really don’t.
My husband’s friend works in a Walmart distribution center. She says it can get very hot in there. But they finally have some decent AC. Why? Because the robots that are there now require cool air to function. Fuck the humans but cater to the machines. What a disgrace.