Cuts to US national parks and forests spark outrage (www.bbc.com)

submitted 9 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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Summary

The Trump administration's recent mass layoffs of national park and forest staff have sparked outrage as services deteriorate and safety concerns grow.

Around 1,000 National Park Service employees (5%) and 3,400 Forest Service workers (10%) were terminated on February 14, causing long entrance lines, trail closures, and reduced visitor services.

Former employees like wilderness ranger Kate White worry about visitor safety and ecological damage at popular destinations.

Conservation work for endangered species has halted, and wildfire response capabilities are threatened. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the cuts as deficit reduction, while critics call for policy reversal.

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[-] newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

All these fuckers talk about is deficit reduction. We gotta cut social services and stuff people rely on to save money cuz the deficit. But they aren't trying to save money. They're trying to give themselves the biggest tax break imaginable and add to the deficit. They just want us to pay for it.

It's the biggest fucking scam in the world And your representatives are lying to you so they can get rich.

[-] papertowels@mander.xyz 1 points 9 months ago

Every dollar given to the IRS yields 5-9 dollars back in recovered taxes.

If I told you you could put a dollar in and multiply that by fivefold in a year, you'd be a fool to not leverage it.

If you were running america as a business, you would failing a fiducial duty by not investing in it.

Now, I wonder why the billionaires in charge of government don't do it?

Hmm.

[-] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

All Billionaires are bankrolled by taxpayer subsidiaries.

Capitalism is Communism for the rich.

[-] turnip@sh.itjust.works 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

There does seem to be a lot of wasteful spending, do you not agree?

I'd far prefer a minimum income or something along those lines. Or just fund electricity production instead if you're worried about people not working.

This is where it appears like the progressives don't actually help the average person, and you get someone like Trump elected.

[-] newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The idea of what they consider to be wasteful and what I consider to be wasteful are very different things. And I don't want to feed into that narrative. They weren't worried about government waste till they wanted to give themselves bigger tax cuts. If they cared about actual waste, they wouldn't remove people in charge of oversight. NIH research isn't wasteful, CFPB isn't wasteful. USAID isn't wasteful. These things pay huge dividends to society. Removing contracts already lined up for other companies and giving it to yourself is the definition of wasteful. Removing the organizations that were investigating your labor practices is cronyism.

So no I don't agree. So if you wanna talk about helping the average person, maybe point to some changes that have happened that'll in some way actually help people and not just make the obscenely wealthly a little richer. But you're unlikely to find any.

[-] turnip@sh.itjust.works -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Conservatives generally believe in monetarism or Austrian economics, you're not exactly unveiling a secret conspiracy, they believe tax cuts help the poor and lower the cost of goods. This is what people voted for.

You really can't find anything in the current DOGE documents outlining waste, something that should be going to actually help the poor instead? I think my point stands that we need to simplify the spending if we want to avoid conservative governance, we all know its not being run efficiently and is rife with corruption.

[-] stickly@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

So let's get this straight, social services are wasteful and don't help the poor. So let's cut them AND raise taxes on the poor while we cut taxes for the rich? Even in that framework it doesn't make any sense.

I don't know for a fact that any of the US spending is all that corrupt at the federal level, don't presume that we agree there. The straws they grasp at as "wasteful" are pennies.

Notice how they don't touch military, social security or medicare. The latter two paper over social issues that could be addressed but conservatives can't cut them because it would be massively unpopular. No amount of "simplified spending" can fix the fundamental flaws in these programs. So in the structure of government spending we're allowed to have, it's not wasteful. It's literally all PR and conservative talking points.

[-] turnip@sh.itjust.works -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It makes sense in the eyes of Milton Friedman and Austrian economist, who believe that it raises the price of goods. Taxing the rich is usually taxing corporations, since the rich aren't exactly liquidating their holdings every year.

[-] newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

This is the welfare queen argument applied to all of governance and it was a lie then. None of the fraud is adding up and none of this will absolutely help the poor. It's all gonna go to making billionaires a slightly higher billionaire.

[-] turnip@sh.itjust.works -2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

What economic theory do you tend to gravitate towards that says the US should be running outlandish deficits every year, and that it benefits the citizens?

I'd be curious to read more into it.

[-] stickly@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

The economic theory that "cutting" critical services (ie: privatizing or starving the beast) is more expensive than just paying for what's needed. The only cheap form of government is no government at all, and I don't think many people would like that in practice.

[-] turnip@sh.itjust.works -1 points 9 months ago

Well that's silly, America is still running emergency Covid level deficits. Powell himself said its not sustainable.

[-] Lemminary@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

This is where it appears like the progressives don't actually help the average person

Another instance of "this is what I believe progressives/leftists/liberals do" and being completely off about it. Lol This is becoming a thing around here, isn't it. Third time this week.

[-] turnip@sh.itjust.works -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

They don't support the most useful programs for the poor like universal healthcare, I know that much. I remember when Joe Biden was building entire wings onto for-profit hospitals during Covid as he said he was against universal healthcare.

[-] f4f4f4f4f4f4f4f4@sopuli.xyz 3 points 9 months ago

Who will rake the leaves? Not raking the leaves is the cause of the recent increased wildfires, according to Donald Trump's own word salad.

[-] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

[-] ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Morons order a turd sandwich then complain that it tastes of feces...

The appropriate time to be outraged was before the election, not after. Now eat up!

[-] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 1 points 9 months ago

spark outrage

I'll believe it when the populace gets up off their ass and actually does something about it. An "outraged" person takes action. They fight for what's right. Until they do something, it's just an apathetic population complaining.

[-] WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Conservatives not liking conservation.

[-] Art3sian@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Ironic that Joe Rogan hosts a monthly ‘Protect our Parks and Wildlife’ pod, then considerably helps to get Trump elected, who then makes moves to fuck up parks and wildlife.

[-] verdantbanana@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

parks are getting setup to be stripped mined of resources and the areas polluted by the efforts

was happening under the Democrats watch too just with more finesse but since both parties are paid from the same checkbook we as citizens are just forced to watch the strip mining of our country with no way out

[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 0 points 9 months ago

I am not sure they will get away with that but the national forests I am most worried about. They just appointed a timber lobbyist to head the USFS and I’m assuming we can kiss our nation’s forests goodbye unless there is a serious public effort to preserve them.

[-] Seleni@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

Trump’s gone on record as saying he wants to sell off the national parks.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago

I think the entire government should be privatized. Chuck E. Cheese could run the parks. Everything operated by tokens. Drop in a token, go on the swing set. Drop in another token, take a walk. Drop in a token, look at a duck.

[-] ramble81@lemm.ee 0 points 9 months ago

Asked this in another thread, but is there a count of the number of people fired/resigned/quit/laid off from government positions and entities?

[-] whatwemadeourselves@slrpnk.net 1 points 9 months ago

There's a running (approximate) tally by department on Wikipedia here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_United_States_federal_mass_layoffs#Dismissals_by_agency

Last time I added it up the total was somewhere around 34k

this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025

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