Harger: WA doubled its budget, signed a new income tax. It couldn’t find $8M to keep the campgrounds open

I just got back from Tokyo with my 13-year-old son. And I know how lucky we are. There were plenty of years when a trip like that wasn’t anywhere on the radar. You make do with what you have, and what we had was a tent, a Discover Pass, and whatever was left in the checking account after the bills were paid.

Before we could afford our travel trailer, we would load up the car and find a state campground somewhere in Washington. Hot dogs on the grill. A fire at night. Nobody’s phone is getting much signal. Just our family, outside, with nowhere to be.

Those trips cost almost nothing, and they were everything.

Which is exactly why what’s happening right now has me shaking my head.

WA DNR campground closures 2026: 13 campgrounds facing late openings or full closures

Washington’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is cutting recreation access across the state. KOMO News reports 13 campgrounds are facing late openings or full closures. Trails at Snoqualmie. Reiter Foothills out near Gold Bar, where families take their kids dirt biking on weekends.

The gap between what DNR needs and what it has is $8 million.

$8 million. In a state that just signed a brand new income tax and whose budget has more than doubled in a decade.

The Washington Monument strategy: agencies cut what you love, not what you’ll never notice

Let me explain something called the Washington Monument strategy. It happens all the time during national budget debates. When an agency faces budget pressure, it doesn’t quietly trim the back office or renegotiate a contract. It cuts the things you’ll notice. The things you love. The things that will make you the angriest.

You see it at the federal level every time there’s a government shutdown. The first things that close are the national parks, monuments, and museums. The TSA workers. The security guards. The working people. Always the working people. Not the lawmakers themselves.

And once you’re angry enough, the ask comes: we just need a little more funding. See what happens when you don’t give it to us?

The cuts create outrage, and the outrage justifies the ask.

Washington’s spending has more than doubled in a decade. The same governor who just signed a brand new income tax couldn’t find $8 million for the campgrounds. The state has been adding services, programs, agencies, and task forces for years. And when it came time to figure out what needed a budget cut, they looked at the trails and campgrounds that working families actually use and said: That’s the one.

WA Rep. Mari Leavitt is calling out her own party on DNR cuts

Democratic state Rep. Mari Leavitt is calling out her own party on this one.

She voted against the Discover Pass fee increase last year. She told me why this weekend. If people are paying 50% more for a Discover Pass because agencies argued they needed it to maintain parks, then people should actually see a benefit. She said making these opportunities affordable is paramount. That access to parks and trails significantly benefits mental health. It strongly benefits veterans. This is not how it should be.

A Democrat. Saying that. About her own party’s budget. Worth noting.

Democrats like to say they are the party of working families. The party of affordability. You hear it in every press conference, every campaign speech, every floor speech. Affordability. Working families. Over and over.

Well. Here it is. Right here.

WA DNR cuts hit the families who have no backup plan

Look, I have options. If the state campground closes, I’ll find a private one. If I had a dirt bike, I could probably find a private trail. That’s not the point.

The point is the family that can’t do that. The family that loads up a truck on a Friday afternoon because a state campground is what’s in the budget. The dad who saved up for a beat-up old dirt bike because that’s how he takes his kids somewhere special on a Saturday. The kid who doesn’t know what Tokyo looks like but knows exactly what the trail at Reiter Foothills feels like.

That family doesn’t have a backup plan.

And when the next legislative session rolls around, someone will stand at a microphone and say: Look what happened when we didn’t have enough money. Look at the campgrounds that closed. Look at the trails that went dark. Look at the families that had nowhere to go. And they’ll ask for more.

A budget that doubled in a decade. A brand new income tax signed into law. And the dad in Monroe can’t take his kids dirt biking this summer.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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