would you pay $41 to enter a National Park?

Johno02 wrote:
If you are not aware of it, the fees for National Parks access goes directly to Washington and into the general budget. Meanwhile, the budget for National Parks is being cut more and more, down to the point that there is very little or no maintenance staff, and fewer Rangers. At at least one major National monument, visited by thousands daily, there is no handicap access to restrooms or the biggest part of the monument. The equipment is there, but is not used due to the cost of maintenance. So, if you want to see our National parks, you better do it before they are all sold to private companies and the price will really go up then! Most visitor facilities and shops are already being run by private contractors,and volunteers working for free.

Where are people getting this information?
While this was true a long time ago, it hasn't been the case for almost 20 years.
If local rangers are telling this to visitors, they are probably seasonals that don't have any idea about funding or budgeting in the Federal recreation programs.

The Fee Demonstration program began in 1996 and this ultimately led to formalization of the program across all Federal properties with Recreation programs via the Recreation Enhancement Act in December of 2004.
I am a retired federal lands recreation manager and I am very familiar with the recreation enhancement act. It literally amounted to millions of dollars that we were able to keep and spend on crews, maintenance, and other recreation-related projects on the same unit that collected the fees.
Here is a link directly to Yellowstone's website which says the park keeps 80% of all the fees they collect. (The other 20% stays with the NPS, but can be used anywhere across the country. This is done to help out less visited parks.)
Link to Yellowstone NP fee page