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a
EDITOR IN CHIEF
Sarah Kickler
EDITORIAL EDITOR
Mike Schmierbach
NIGHT EDITOR
Sarah Kickler
CHRIS HUTCHINSON/Emerald
/
A proposed $3 per user fee
for Terwilliger Hot Springs
is part of a harmful trend
in social service policy
The Register-Guard, an edit about
Tuesday afternoon lounging in the warmth
of Terwilliger Hot Springs.” At a broader
level, it’s also about the future of public
lands.
Therefore, let’s start with a brief discus
sion about Social Security.
A recent trend in Social Security plan
ning has been to call for reduced benefits or
increased taxes for those recipients who
are in higher income brackets. On the sur
face, it’s a proposal in line with the tradi
tions of liberalism and the progressive in
come tax.
A number of scholars, including one of
President Roosevelt’s economists, have
suggested this plan may end up benefiting
the very rich, however. Their theory is that,
after the “comfortable” have been removed
from the system, political support for So
cial Security will go the way of backing for
welfare — the system doesn’t help me, so
why should I pay for it?
This steady narrowing and then elimina
tion of social services is one of two trends
in public policy today. The other is applic
able to proposals dealing with Terwilliger
his is, in the immortal words of
“the half-dozen naked people
who spent an otherwise-gloomy
AN EMERALD EDITORIAL
Hot Springs, but the parallels between the
two policy notions are alarming.
Forest service officials who oversee the
Willamette National Forest, where the
springs bubble, are proposing to institute a
$3-per-person day-use fee for the area.
Such fees, which in various forms are be
coming common in Oregon, are part of an
other theory of public facility management.
For those programs that can’t be nar.
rowed out of existence or public hands,
state and federal governments are striving
to charge users for the services they con
sume. Like shifting the burdens of Social
Security, usage fees make sense on the sur
face, until one evaluates their end result.
As parks and other facilities become for
profit, the rich who may still use them de
cide they would rather pay private compa
nies for the additional luxuries they
provide. Meanwhile, the truly poor can no
longer afford to use supposedly “public”
lands.
This leads to an eventual drop in service
use and revenue, which in turn causes
even higher fees (after all, those with politi
cal power have long switched to private
sources for their recreation) that simply
worsen the situation. Eventually, the feder
al government surrenders to the logic of the
marketplace and corporate lobbyists and
decides to privatize another chunk of the
parks system.
Think this is absurd? Look at prisons: At
first, federal and state programs called for
prisons to pay their own way by instituting
forced labor policies; now, an increasing
number of prisons across the nation are be
coming privately owned and run.
In the end, of course, taxpayer money
continues to pour into the privately man
aged facilities. Privatization of welfare and
prisons doesn’t mean the government does
n’t pay for the services; it just means the
people running the services have an incen
tive to cut costs while adding to the num
ber of enrolled and the cost to taxpayers.
Meanwhile, in the parks system, federal
money continues to subsidize resource ex
traction such as logging, grazing and min
ing. It seems that, in public land manage
ment as well as other social services, waste
is OK as long as the extra money goes to
corporations.
Of course, the proposal to institute user
fees isn’t troublesome only because it rep
resents part of a larger trend toward pro
corporate privatization. There is also a sim
ple question of fairness: As previously
mentioned, companies that permanently
scar the environment pay less than their ac
tions cost, while $3 a day is almost certain
ly more than the price of an individual hot
spring user’s impact on the area.
Moreover, this proposal seems motivat
ed in part by a certain opposition to the
counterculture. For one thing, the hot
springs are one of the rare free, clothing
optional locations in the state. (A fact that
led The Register-Guard to delight, as al
ways, in the naked state of its interview
subjects.)
Additionally, many of the people who
use the springs will be deterred by a usage
fee, even one as small as $3. Finally, by im
posing the fee on individuals rather than
vehicles, the Forest Service would discour
age car pooling and communal enjoyment
of the area.
The hot springs are not without their
problems, but the degree of crime and envi
ronmental impact seems greatly overstated.
Perhaps this is a result of officials who
view the alternative culture that admittedly
frequents the area as little more than a
bunch of “dirty, homeless hippies.”
As a whole, we appreciate the need to
maintain and monitor public areas like the
hot springs, however. Nevertheless, a user
fee as high and broad as the one proposed
doesn’t seem to be the best option. Alterna
tives could include imposing it only on ve
hicles, making it voluntary or even looking
for volunteers from local outdoors groups
and hot spring frequenters who would be
willing to help care for the area.
Or perhaps we should just charge The
Register-Guard reporters for the opportuni
ty to gawk at bathers “wearing nothing but
a tattoo."
This editorial represents the opinion of the
Emerald editorial hoard. Responses may be
sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu
Thumbs
rs
To the release of
CIA documents:
Although the
process is going slow
ly and many things re
main classified in bla
tant violation of the
federal freedom of in
formation law and
President Clinton's or
der declassifying most
information over 25
years old, a few re
vealing documents
have come out In par
ticular, a report follow
ing the unsuccessful
Bay of Pigs invasion of
Cuba was released
that indicated the CIA
was largely to blame
for the mission's fail
ure. Moreover, it went
on to suggest that all
such destabilizing
missions were ill ad
vised. If only the CIA
had reviewed its own
records in the follow
ing 35-plus years.
Thumbs
To continued
violation of the
Chemical Weapons
Convention:
Even though the
Senate signed the
CWC last year, U.S.
industry continues
to be in violation
because Congress
has not passed a
law compelling pri
vate companies to
be in compliance.
Until these com
panies face man
dates that force
them to carefully
document what
they export and to
open their records
to inspection, the
United States will
be in a poor posi
tion to demand for
eign nations com
ply with
international
treaties such as the
convention.