Private businesses have had to cutback, lay off and slash jobs while desperately trying to stay in business during the Obama administration, all while paying more in taxes and watching the government bloat with newer and higher paying jobs.
Well, the piper is calling and now it’s time for bureaucrats to line up for pink slips. And yes, we will feel that out here in the West.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said this week he wants to cut 4,000 jobs from his department that hosts 70,000 jobs, with about 1,000 coming from the BLM that has nearly 12,000 employees.
But not to environmentalists who want to kill private sector energy jobs, and they need these government sheep to do their dirty work for them.
To PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, the prospect of cutting Interior Department jobs is just one step short of murder, a “starvation diet.”
“According to Trump’s fantasy plan, BLM is supposed to achieve energy independence before its coffee break, stimulate rural job creation by lunch and do it with substantially less resources,” Ruch said. He predicted that reductions of that magnitude would likely require layoffs.
The Park Service is dealing with proposed cuts in a typical manner — through emotional blackmail and threats of closing parks early or eliminating some visitor services.
Government workers have avoided cutbacks and losses for decades by pleading to the media to convince the public those jobs are needed or it’s the public who will suffer.
But after eight years of Obama administration job loses in the private sector, we don’t expect to see much sympathy.