SCRANTON, Pa. — Five employees at Steamtown National Historic Site have been dismissed as part of cuts to National Park Service employees by the Trump administration, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
David Fitzpatrick, an official with two locals of the American Federation of Government Employees, told the newspaper another five were dismissed at Gettysburg National Military Park and two at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. Independence National Historical Park also has about 30 unfilled openings, and Fitzpatrick said he understood offers for some of those jobs have been rescinded.
All those involved are apparently probationary employees — those in their first year of federal employment, who have not yet gained civil service protection and can be dismissed more easily. Probationary employees have accounted for the majority of almost 10,000 employees dismissed across a broad range of agencies; National Public Radio reports more than 200,000 employees could hold probationary status. Reuters reports that about 1,000 probationary National Park Service employees are being cut, which would represent about 5% of the agency’s workforce.
The National Park service has 433 sites, which it calls units, in more than 19 classifications such as National Parks, National Historical Parks, and National Monuments. They are visited by about 325 million people each year. Among others that are rail-related are the Golden Spike National Historic Site in Utah; the Pullman National Historical Park in Chicago, and Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site.
That there need to be cuts to government spending is not in question. How those cuts are made needs to be done a lot more carefully than is currently the case. The item mentions five staff positions being laid off at Steamtown. I don’t know how much of an impact those cuts will have; the spokesman states two will be cut at Independence Park in Philly, and also notes they have 30 unfilled positions, and there have been some offers rescinded-often to people who have planned their working year around the NPS tourist season, folks who are not left without a job they were counting on, and now have to scramble to recover. Presumably, Steamtown is in the same position. The NPS is short staffed almost everywhere. While Steamtown ain’t Yosemite, those cuts will still have some effect, even if it’s only to make for a longer wait time to get into the park, or a couple fewer train rides. As for those RVers waiting in line longer, it may not matter, as some of the parks have announced they will not be offering full camping services. With the staffing cuts, it’s likely things like facilities maintenance-cleaning bathrooms, for example-might not be done as often as the visitors would like.
But let’s look a little deeper. Granted, a few less NPS rangers are not likely to prove fatal to anyone, though a case could be made that might actually be true for those whose job is search and rescue, but the level of service will be negatively impacted. The real danger is that the seemingly haphazard nature of the cuts will negatively affect the safety and security of the US. The cuts to the NNSA, which administers our nuclear arsenal, had to be rescinded, and now they can’t find a lot of the fired employees. Likewise, USAID, which provided a lot of food and medical aid around the world. It was a great way for the US to have a positive presence in places that didn’t always welcome an American presence. It also purchased a lot of things like rice, which was a lifeline for farmers in some parts of the US, among them here in Arkansas, which is the prime rice producer in America.
The real insult, though, is the disdainful way the administration regards these workers, often demeaning and denigrating them, as if they and the work they did was worthless. Let’s see how worthless anyone thinks they are when they call the Social Security Administration, or Medicare, or the VA, and the wait times are even longer than the unreasonable time they are now. Instead of the insulting tone, Trump and his shadow president Elon Musk could show some respect and compassion for the people they have just cast into unemployment. Some outplacement assistance would be a good place to start. But to begin with, they could at least stop insulting them-and the rest of America-at every turn.
They could also stop lying about the reasons for the firings. A number of recently dismissed employees have stated their firing notices(sent via email; the chicken shxt DOGE gang doesn’t even have the stones to fire them in person) stated they were let go for poor performance, when they have had favorable job evaluations, and in some cases, no job evaluation, since they haven’t been in the position long enough to get one. Just another example of Trump dishonesty.
There has been some discussion of tax cuts and the Trump mandate. To that point, whether or not there are more tax cuts forthcoming, I can’t say. The House just passed a budget bill that would extend the 2017 cuts. The last time this was done, the Trump I administration ran up $8 trillion in national debt. Bet on it happening again, and what mitigation occurs will be carried on the backs of people who need their money a lot more than the 1 percenters who will be the beneficiaries of this Treasury give away, and who will be just fine without the tax cuts.
Finally, the Trump margin of victory. The Electoral College is a peculiarity of presidential election policy. It doesn’t take much to gain a wide margin of victory. If anything, the last Republicans elected president have won with a minority of the popular vote, but enough to get a majority in the Electoral College. Trump got 49.8% this time around, winning the popular vote by around 2 1/4 million votes out of 152 million cast. While that was enough to get 312 electoral votes, it was hardly a mandate, and was surely not, as some have claimed, a landslide. He should be in prison anyway, you all know why, the evidence has been well documented and widely reported in multiple reliable news sources.
I will assume most americans agree that there is waste, inefficiencies, and frauds in every government agency. We cannot
Continue to run debts and deficits in the trillions of dollars. But it certainly seems nobody wants the agencies that they believe in to have to make any cuts or improvements in efficiencies, and to stopping the wasting of funds.
At least Americans can take comfort in knowing the one percent ultra-wealthy will receive yet another unwarranted tax cut so the park rangers, FAA staff, and historical workers can be dismissed. And unelected
Muskrat can have access to all IRS accounts.
That is not true and you know it. There will be no tax cuts in this budget, only the continuation of of the $12,500 individual tax cut implemented in Trumps first term and kept in place by Biden. In this case the middle class is the group that benefits the most as it should be. And if the dems vote against it everyone of their names should be published so every American knows who gave them a tax $12,500 TAX INCREASE. Yes, life is tough right now for everyone but since it was THE LAST ADMINISTRATION that created this problem of runaway inflation and high prices, everyone is going to have to pay to get things back under control. And that might include Amtrak who Amtrak Joe and Mayor Pete did absolutely nothing for during their time at the control, instead spending money of uncesssary, waseful programs. As Lincoln once said, you can’t spend your way into prosperity!
Mr. Rice, Trump got less than 50 percent of the total votes, that doesn’t reflect his impression of a mandate.
I’d say 49.8% is close enough to half… Plus, 312 electoral votes to 226 is just as impressive, especially when only 270 were required. Of course some would say that Trump didn’t win as much as Harris lost but that is basically the same thing. The only thing that surprised me was that it was even that close.
The country is $35,000,000,000,000 in debt. The trend is not sustainable.
Where would you start? Tax the billionaires? There aren’t enough.
For tax year 2022, the top 1 percent ($663,000 and above) paid 40.4 percent of all the taxes. In the same year, 31.4 percent of 161.336 million returns paid no taxes at all, zero or received money from the feds.
For tax year 2022, the top 10 percent paid 76 percent of the taxes and the top 25 percent paid 89 percent of the taxes.
Congress, which controls the purse, has kicked this can down the road for many years. As they say, the chickens have come home to roost.
You know nothing about the national debt…I would listen to a man like Warren Buffet over you or any economist any day of the week, and he has said on numerous occasions the national debt is a non-issue. The Federal Reserve put themselves in this spot by not refinancing older debt for longer terms when interest rates were exceptionally low…if they had our debt payments today would be less than they were a decade ago. Forget short term debt, they shouldn’t issue anything less than 5 years and should actually be issuing longer term notes like 10 – 20 year…and a lot of economists have even agreed on that part. You want to fix the problem real fast, take Congress off of their guaranteed pensions and put them on Social Security and Medicare like every other citizen, you’ll see everything fixed real quick then.
What you don’t know about taxation could fill a book.
Gerald, here is what Warren Buffett stated, “Billionaire investor Warren Buffett sought to turn attention from the rising US debt to the fiscal deficit, which he said could be a trouble area, since it is not in control of the Fed chair Jerome Powell. “I don’t worry about the quantity of debt, I worry about the fiscal deficit,” Warren Buffett said at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting in Omaha.
Fiscal deficit, spending more than you take in, is what he is concerned about. Fiscal deficits lead to national deficit. How can you control fiscal deficits if you do not reduce fiscal spending? Where would you cut fiscal spending to reduce fiscal deficit? It’s easy to pooh pooh what others say without having a solution.
Matthew, I know more about taxation than than you think you do.
Yes and the interest on the debt which is over 1 TRILLION a year. And taking Congress off of their pensions wouldn’t even amount .25% of 1 percent of the national debt. There isn’t enough former legislators, Billionaires or Millionaires to do what you are advocating. You would have to tax 50% of their income to even make a tiny dent! And that wouldn’t be fair either…
I went through two RIFs in the military. Why should the federal workforce be exempt from such events?
I went through too many RIF’s to count in my 45-year career in the private sector. My last employer before I retired recently RIF’ed 3,000+ executives. There were no demonstrations nor protests for them. The Federal “Civil Service” has been protected from the reality of economics for far too long.
This is what 49.3 percent of the voters have wrought upon the rest of us, mayhem & chaos!
Galen, you aren’t listing the number that officially counts. 312 electoral votes.
I see the first attempt in years to finally get a handle on government spending and impose some control over the “tenured” Federal bureaucracy.
This is the first serious attempt to do this since President Carter tried for awhile to establish annual zero based budgeting but it was ultimately not successful.
Mr. Trump got 57.7% of the 538 Electoral Votes. Idk where you got your 49.3%…
John Pinckney the 49.8% is the popular vote which just about every nation uses to determine the winner of elections including every other election in the United States but the President.
I just want to clarify that probationary employees are not just people in their first year of public service. Anytime someone’s job title changes, they start a new probationary period. So this also includes anyone who was recently promoted, moved laterally, or whose position was reclassified (same job, different title.) Very few probational employees are new to the govt as most serve in temporary positions for years before finally becoming “permanent.” And many are veterans who might take issue with being considered to be in their first year of federal service.
Since 2019 US government employees have gone from 2.1 million to 3 million. If they want to go back to 2019 levels the place to start is with probationary employees because they can be immediately fired. It’s very difficult to fire tenured employees (at all levels of government) unless their department (such as DEI) has been eliminated.
There will no real savings because the billinairs must get their tax cuts.
Wrong. There will be no tax cuts. Only the continuation of the personal 12,500 tax cut from 8 years ago…
There will be howls of outrage from several quarters: foamers, trumpers, remorseful voters, idealists, ideologues, idiots…don’t forget the RVers stuck in line to enter a natl. park.
As a life long railroader I’m very accustomed to force reductions.
Same here in broadcasting/telecommunications. The Civil Service is finally experiencing what life in the real world is like.