Executive
Waste of the Day: Throwback Thursday: In 2008, National Parks Celebrated Centennial Too Early
The National Park Service celebrated its centennial – in the wrong year, 2008 instead of 2016. Some of the spending projects were silly.
Topline: Turning 100 years old is a big deal, and it would be reasonable to start planning a birthday party a few months in advance.
Way early centennial
Beginning the festivities eight years early is something else entirely, but that’s exactly how the National Park Service spent $25 million in 2008. Never mind the fact that the NPS didn’t actually turn 100 until 2016.
That’s according to the “Wastebook” reporting published by the late U.S. Senator Dr. Tom Coburn. For years, these reports shined a white-hot spotlight on federal frauds and taxpayer abuses.
Coburn, the legendary U.S. Senator from Oklahoma, earned the nickname “Dr. No” by stopping thousands of pork-barrel projects using the Senate rules. Projects that he couldn’t stop, Coburn included in his oversight reports.
Coburn’s Wastebook 2008 included 65 examples of outrageous spending worth more than $1.3 billion, including the NPS’ birthday bash, which cost $36.2 million in today’s money.
Key facts: National park centennial programming was funded through private donations matched by the federal government.
Some money went toward ecosystem preservation and climate change research. But for every serious initiative there was one like the two-day “Parkpalooza” at Missouri’s Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, which spent $60,000 on “rock climbing” and “learning how to pack a backpack.”
The New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park received $2 million to build outdoor and indoor stages for its jazz band. Zion National Park in Utah spent $75,000 to hire an “artist-in-residence.”
Meanwhile, the NPS had a $9.6 billion backlog of needed repairs on its properties.
Instead of spending on badly needed repairs
The plan in 2008 was to spend $1 billion on the birthday celebration over the next several years. Thankfully that never happened, but Congress did allocate another $25 million before the actual centennial in 2016
That year, the NPS spent money on events like “Sing Across America,” which “brought young people together to express the human connection to nature through song.”
Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.
Critical quote: “We will continue to raise the question about quid pro quo,” Bill Wade of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees said at the time. “And, we continue to be concerned that these kinds of projects don’t necessarily reflect the highest priority needs of the NPS, because a ‘partner’ is needed for the matching funding.”
Summary: A simple ice cream cake for the NPS would have saved taxpayers millions of dollars and been much easier for everyone involved.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by CEO & founder, Adam Andrzejewski, with Jeremy Portnoy. Learn more at OpenTheBooks.com.
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.
Adam Andrzejewski (say: Angie-eff-ski) was the CEO/founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Before dedicating his life to public service, Adam co-founded HomePages Directories, a $20 million publishing company (1997-2007). His works have been featured on the BBC, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, C-SPAN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, FOX News, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), Forbes, Newsweek, and many other national media.
Today, OpenTheBooks.com is the largest private repository of U.S. public-sector spending. Mission: post "every dime, online, in real time." In 2022, OpenTheBooks.com captured nearly all public expenditures in the country, including nearly all disclosed federal government spending; 50 of 50 state checkbooks; and 25 million public employee salary and pension records from 50,000 public bodies across America.
The group's aggressive transparency and forensic auditing of government spending has led to the assembly of grand juries, indictments, and successful prosecutions; congressional briefings, hearings, and subpoenas; Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits; Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports; federal legislation; and much more.
Our Honorary Chairman - In Memoriam is U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, MD.
Andrzejewski's federal oversight work was included in the President's Budget To Congress FY2021. The budget cited his organization by name, bullet-pointed their findings, and footnoted/hyperlinked to their report.
Posted on YouTube, Andrzejewski's presentation, The Depth of the Swamp, at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar 2020 in Naples, Florida received 3.8 million views.
Andrzejewski has spoken at the Columbia School of Journalism, Harvard Law School and the law schools at Georgetown and George Washington regarding big data journalism. As a senior policy contributor at Forbes, Adam had nearly 20 million pageviews on 206 published investigations. In 2022, investigative fact-finding on Dr. Fauci's finances led to his cancellation at Forbes.
In 2022, Andrzejewski did 473 live television and radio interviews across broadcast, major cable platforms, and radio shows. Andrzejewski is the author of The Waste of the Day column at Real Clear Policy. The column is syndicated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates across USA.
Andrzejewski passed away in his sleep at his home in in Hinsdale, Illinois, on August 18, 2024. He is survived by his wife Kerry and three daughters. He also served as a lector at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church and finished the Chicago Marathon eight times (PR 3:58.49 in 2022).
Waste of the Day articles published after August 18, 2024 are considered posthumous publications.
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