Jr. This is the time of year when Americans begin flocking to their national parks. But others may find themselves wondering whether they have traded one rat race for another. The national parks contain most of America's greatest scenic wonders. If past experience is any guide, for example, there will be gridlock today in Yosemite. Many of the park system's 22,000 historic buildings, as any visitor to Ellis Island can confirm, are simply falling apart.
Human overload is the most visible culprit.
But the real culprit is Congress. In the past 20 years, it has established more than 80 new parks while refusing to give the Interior Department's Park Service enough money to do its job. There is now in place a vastly different Congress, more inclined to budgetary parsimony than environmental stewardship. Its basic philosophy is that to save the patient we have to cut off an arm here, a leg there. That is the wrong way to go.