Sunrise light on a grove of tufa towers emerging from the water of Mono Lake with soft green and dusty-red wild grasses in the foreground, Canada geese in the shallow water with reflections of the rocky towers, and desert hills in the distance.

State budget crisis could cost 50 times State Parks budget

Sunrise light on a grove of tufa towers emerging from the water of Mono Lake with soft green and dusty-red wild grasses in the foreground, Canada geese in the shallow water with reflections of the rocky towers, and desert hills in the distance.

State Park Closure Action Alert CenterAdd this to the ironies surrounding the money-losing proposal to shut down most of California’s State Parks, including Mono Lake and Bodie:

The Sacramento Bee reports that state Treasurer Bill Lockyer recently made some calculations. If the state issues IOUs (currently slated to start tomorrow) and the state’s credit rating is downgraded, credit costs–the price of borrowing money for the state to operate–will rise by $8 billion.

As Lockyer pointed out, that is 52.5 times the total annual cost of operating all State Parks.