Conflagration. “A large, intense, and uncontrolled fire. It can also refer to a violent conflict or war.”
That’s what we are witnessing in our federal government as the Executive Branch disregards all laws in its violent purge of perceived enemies.
“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” the president wrote on his contradictorily named social media platform, Truth Social, and on the official White House X account on Saturday.
Except, the people who have been indiscriminately fired from their jobs, with likely more to come, are hardly our enemies rather they are professionals in the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service, among others, with years of expertise who were safeguarding our communities.
While 150 workers who helped manage over 24 million acres of public lands in Colorado lost their jobs on Valentine’s Day, nationally the Forest Service laid off 3,400 people and the NPS, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and BLM let 2,300 people go.
Into the wilderness of unemployment they went accompanied by the uncertainty of how they were going to pay their rent or mortgage, put food on the table, make a truck or car payment, pay student loans and credit cards, and/or support their family.
The safety net of unemployment benefits is also an uncertainty. What is certain is that the officials in charge of dispensing real people from their jobs are lying, emulating their boss. “Falsehoods” is such an odd term and doesn’t fit the magnitude of what is actually happening on the ground to real people in real communities like ours.
The email Forest Service workers, in Colorado and nationally, received on Feb. 14 said, “The Agency finds, based on your performance, that you have not demonstrated that your further employment at the Agency would be in the public interest.”
Never mind that one of the Colorado staff members fired had just two weeks ago received a bonus and a commendation for community service. Another, in her most recent performance appraisal, was said to “demonstrate commitment and personal responsibility to strive for excellence.”
Among the first to go were those on probationary status, one to two years into a new job, including those who had long been with the agency and recently accepted a new position. Another group were the younger next generation of natural resource managers and stewards, which the country is certain to need in the future, burned by their experience who knows if they’ll ever return to the field.
No one but the president and his people are winning here. The Herald’s editorial board strongly encourages the Republican Party to stand up for the constituents they represent. Rep. Jeff Hurd, this is hardly a partisan issue. This, in many cases, is a matter of life and death.
Colorado already ranks 10th in the nation for death by suicide as of 2022, and as farmers and ranchers are abandoned by the federal government, we won’t be surprised if the already high suicide rate in this population skyrockets as they struggle economically, and mentally, at an already incredibly demanding job, and work to make ends meet without adequate labor due to immigration raids, or federal support the USDA historically has provided.
Those fired are our friends and neighbors who support other businesses, our communities and economies. These actions are an affront to everything communities like ours have worked for centuries to build, with the federal government as our partner.
Our land management agencies are already underfunded. So, too, is our county and state government and local fire district, none of which are in a position to fill the gaping hole left by the feds. The fallout from all these cuts to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy – people and corporations who already pay no or fewer taxes by percentile than the rest of us – is increased community vulnerability.
Where local and state agencies leave off, the federal government has been there. Durango Fire Protection District wrote last month (Herald, Jan. 19) about the sorry state of affairs of funding for wildfire mitigation and fire fighting. Local wildfire mitigation has relied on collaboration among local governments, federal agencies and nonprofit partners whose funding is under attack – by our president (Herald, Feb. 16).
One thing we know is that when there are fires in January, like in LA and locally, we’re in trouble for the “real” fire season. And yesterday we learned that the president is now eyeing an 84% staff reduction in the office within the Department of Housing and Urban Development that pays for recovery efforts after hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters. That follows reductions in Federal Emergency Management Agency staffing and capabilities.
As we asked in “Our View: The president with a cudgel,” (Herald, Feb. 9), when will Republicans end it?
