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Park also has about 30 unfilled openings, and Fitzpatrick said he understood offers for some of those jobs have been rescinded.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.
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.
Mr. Rice, Trump got less than 50 percent of the total votes, that doesn’t reflect his impression of a mandate.
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.
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%…
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.
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.