Conservatives in Congress are charging that the Obama administration has been trying to make the government shutdown as painful as possible by closing some of the most celebrated and iconic national parks and wild lands.
Veterans being denied a chance to visit the World War II memorial on the National Mall became an early symbol of the government’s closure, but lawmakers have since said that public land regulators are going out of their way to prevent tourists from visiting national sites and keep hunters and fishers out of wildlife refuges.
Some conservatives have said that the actions are politically motivated to increase the pressure on congressional Republicans, whom the public has tended to blame for the shutdown.
“You have the people who are making the decision about how far the shutdown will reach being aware when they do this that the blame will be borne, presumably, by the GOP,” said Hans Bader, a senior attorney at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute. “I think there’s an element of political theater to it.”
More @ The Hill
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