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Trump Administration Wants To Fire 248 Forecasters At the National Weather Service (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: After a year that saw over $300 million in damages from hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural disasters, the Trump administration is proposing significant cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) and hopes to eliminate the jobs of 248 weather forecasters. The idea, which is part of the 2019 fiscal budget proposal and caught the agency by surprise, is being derided by the NWS's labor union, which says the cuts will impact the reliability of future weather forecasts and warnings. All totaled, the Weather Service faces cuts of $75 million in the initial proposal. Some or all of those cuts could be jettisoned before the bill is voted upon. "We can't take any more cuts and still do the job that the American public needs us to do -- there simply will not be the staff available on duty to issue the forecasts and warnings upon which the country depends," said Dan Sobien, the president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization.
Further reading: The Washington Post
Further reading: The Washington Post
Can any history nerds supply any information about a world power transforming itself into a 3rd world country as quickly as the US is? I know that other countries have fallen due to war, but have any other countries/societies/cultures fallen so far, so quickly, due to their own stupidity, as suddenly as the US?
I don't respond to AC's.
Perhaps in the future, the parable of futility will be President Trump, holding back climate change.
It's frustrating. Trump's fundamental belief du jour is military good, everything else bad. There's no option for discussion, let alone argument. This is what he's being told his core supporters believe so he's along for the ride. What he said in the past about military waste be damned.
There are two sides to military waste.
The bloated programs that are kept alive by both military bureaucracy and congressional political issues.
And then there's absolute waste. It takes an act of congress for the military to buy almost anything, literally. So, instead of buying, they lease. The leases cost far more. Sometimes far, far more. But, they can schedule the payments so congressional action is not required. The military is a business, and this is no way to run a business. Congress is the board of directors, and they need to be taken out of the day to day decision system. No successful business can run that way.
The chart shows that they did the right thing in the 1930s. Did not matter how deep the depression got, they always balanced the books. Worked real good.
Then that evil Rosevelt ran up a huge deficit just because there was a war on. Crippled the country. The depression was over, no more dirt cheap labor.
Moving on, we see the deficit from Obama during the Global Financial Crisis. Weak. He should have been tough like Hover in the depression. When the economy shrinks you tighten your belt. Stands to reason. Then we could have had another result like the 1930s.
Reaganomics, on the other hand, is clear and purposeful. Cut taxes, increase military spending so you can create a crisis and then cut those socialist services that rot the morality of the working man.
I'm a professional pilot and this is a very bad idea for the safety of air travel. We rely on weather forecasting to make decisions about how much fuel to carry, what diverts to plan, and to make decisions if the flight can be safely conducted or not. The public benefits in many not so obvious ways from weather forecasting. Getting on an airplane with a good expectation that you will safely reach your destination, or not run out of fuel going to a weather divert is just one of them. The President should think of that next time he gets on Air Force One, or in his private 757. Making weather information freely and publicly available increases the safety for everyone in the air and on the ground.
My political rant for today: I suspect there's a lobbying bonanza going on in the background and all of these privatization initiatives coming out of this administration and this congress have more to do with cronyism than the common good. When a Republic stops representing the common good, it is no longer a Republic, but a Plutocracy or an oligarchy. This is the bigger issue of our time, not collusion, not Trump, and not any of the other issues being touted in the media. Having an NWS is in the public's best interest.
no one said things like "Obama [**inser crazy thing**]"
Sure they did, they said that quite a lot actually, there was a complete news network dedicated to come up with new crazy things to insert there. Sometimes it's correct that the administration of the current president is the instigator of some crazy things, but motsly it's as you say just things that comes with governing. In this case, I don't know, but budget cuts of $75 million is nothing to scoff at.
I agree that we need to get away from this black and white kind of reporting it doesn't help either side in the long run. I do not know if you are a Trump supporter, but if you are then you better concentrate on the reporting in your own camp, it's better to discuss these things with people that trust your intentions. If you are not a Trump supporter then yey for you.