Outdoors, you don't need no stinkin' outdoors.
As a child growing up in Wisconsin, living in Madison was a wondrous thing—a 15-minute drive in any direction and you would be out in the country. Many of my childhood memories are of my parents packing up the "Holiday Vacationer," hooking it up to the '73 Plymouth Fury III (when it didn't need a new oil pump), and heading out to one of Wisconsin's beautiful state parks. It was always an exciting day when my dad would pull into the first state park of the year and purchase a yearly admission sticker. By the time that old Plymouth had rusted out and gone through more oil pumps than a vehicle had a right to go through, there were two rows of state park stickers on the left side of the windshield.
The most common destination back then was Governor Dodge State Park, just an hour away from home. Yet once in the park, it seemed like we were a million miles from nowhere. The night sky was clear and unpolluted, the man-made lakes were clean and algae-free. I learned how to swim at one of the beaches at Governor Dodge. Campfires, listening to my parents, aunts, and uncles tell stories about growing up in the Depression. Going on hikes with my cousins during the day, finding deer antlers that had been shed, and getting back to camp with them just before my mom took the chicken off the grill.
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Today, my son and I still drive up to Governor Dodge State Park. I go because there is an actual A&W drive-in in Dodgeville, my son thinks it is because I like to hike down to the springhouse and waterfall. It's still a big deal for me to purchase the yearly sticker on the first trip of the year to the park. While I no longer get to hear the family stories, I do get to see the same places, and share some of the stories I heard as a child with my son.
And now I'm not sure if my son will be able to share our stories, not if Gov. Scott Walker has his way.
As part of his 2015-17 state budget, Walker is proposing to remove all general-purpose revenue to operate Wisconsin state parks, trails and recreation areas — a cut of $4.6 million, or nearly 28 percent, of their current $16.7 million operational budget, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Act 10 attacked public servants and stripped away worker rights, all in the name of plugging a budget hole. Walker, facing another gigantic budget deficit, this time of his own making, is slashing anything and everything. Nothing that is sacred to Wisconsinites is safe. From the University of Wisconsin, to our public schools, and now our treasured state park system.
Tourism in Wisconsin brought in $17.5 billion in 2013. Drive through any state park in the summer and you will find that out-of-state license plates will outnumber Wisconsin plates. Raising fees will not replace the cut in state funding. Facilities will not be maintained, the quality of our state parks will decline, and tourism dollars will shrink.
While Walker's massive cuts to the university system, public education, and to the state park system may make his budget hole look a little bit better, the people of Wisconsin will be paying the price for his delusions of glory for many years to come. His pursuit of the presidency comes at the expense of the people he is supposed to be representing.
The economic engines that drive Wisconsin are in part, tourism and the University of Wisconsin System. Walker seems bound and determined to kill them both off in pursuit of an office that will likely be just out of his reach due to his extreme views. I know. We had a chance to vote him out of office twice, and Wisconsin deserves what we voted for (can we skip that in the comments? It is getting old.). Heed this warning: Do not underestimate Scott Walker. If you do, it is at your own peril. If you don't, he could be cutting funding to the National Park Service one day.