mrchad9 - There's a big bucket of money. Some of it comes from park entry fees, some from backcountry permits, some from concession fees. A SAR comes up, so you pull a wad of cash out of the bucket and use it to pay for helicopter fuel. Who paid for the helicopter?
Short of making all federal lands free to access, which is an entirely separate discussion, how do you propose to make NPS SAR taxpayer funded as opposed to user-fee funded? There is no "SAR Fee" built into your $20 entrance fee or $80 yearly pass, it's just another budget item - currently one that works out to 18c/visitor.
Poor wording in my earlier post - I didn't mean to imply that no one shares your opinion, only that arguing for no-charge rescue does not imply a stance on how rescue ultimately gets funded (user fees v. tax dollars). But it seems kind of silly to argue about which funding source is paying for which budget item.