You’ll probably have a beautiful view if you should ever visit the latest stretch of land approved by the U.S. House of Representatives as a national park. The trouble is, you won’t actually be in any of the 50 states.
Over mostly Republican opposition, the House voted to spend $50 million to buy 2,900 beach-front acres in the U.S. Virgin Islands — roughly 1,000 miles by plane from Florida, Fox News pointed out. The land is a former cotton plantation.
Critics of the wasteful plan noted that it’s out of the financial reach of the overwhelming majority of the American people even to get to this proposed “U.S.” park, and that it’s absurd to spend tens of millions of dollars there when our country’s unemployment rate is in the 10 percent range.
They also point out that the owners likely could not get such a price if they tried to sell the land through normal processes. Plus, the National Park Service is already billions of dollars short of what it needs to maintain existing park lands, so why should Uncle Sam snap up more?
The family that is trying to sell the pricey parcel to the United States says it is interested only in “protecting” it from developers, though there are simpler ways to do that without sticking U.S. taxpayers with a $50 million bill.