Call Me Stormy

Consumer and investigative journalist John Stossel came across two campgrounds near his house, one privately owned, the other government owned. Signs at the government run campground say “Camp is full,” but it’s not! There are few people camping.

Stossel says he asked the Massachusetts Department of Parks why its big camp was mostly empty. They didn’t respond. He kept calling and emailing until nine days later, he received an answer. An official told him they had difficulty hiring seasonal employees. Hard to believe, since this past summer Massachusetts had the highest unemployment rate in America, mostly because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nearby at Maurice’s Campground, the smaller private one just a bike ride away, they managed to hire enough staff. They had to. They fund themselves. If they don’t please their customers, they can’t stay in business. The owner, John Gauthier, told Stossel, “If there was no staff, we were the staff.” That’s the difference between government and private. The Massachusetts Parks Department is allowed to lose millions of dollars. Taxpayers will make up the difference. Gauthier invests his own money He has to make a profit to survive.

“It’s unfair, you have to compete against the government, which is losing all this money,” Stossel told him. Gauthier replied, “Yeah. It’s not a great scenario, but what can we do?”

It’s a storyline playing out all over America amid the coronavirus crisis. Here’s more on the John Stossel Channel.