Tesla owner Elon Musk, right, was hardly alone in the tech sector in supporting the reelection efforts by Donald Trump, left. Many Silicon Valley investors and innovators were hoping for a lighter regulatory hand than they have seen under President Joe Biden. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The massive funding cuts and layoffs inflicted by President Trump and his billionaire sidekick Elon Musk on numerous federal government agencies and contractors in recent weeks are already producing disastrous results.
All across the country, thousands of good and vitally important public servants are suddenly unemployed and many of their important functions are now falling to overworked survivors or simply being abandoned.
And while some of these jobs — like, say, cancer researchers or food safety inspectors — may typically operate beyond the public’s view, other cuts will be immediately apparent.
Take our national parks. This vital public resource has always been underfunded and understaffed and now the recent Trump/Musk purge in which around 1,000 employees were summarily canned will make things much worse.
The bottom line: if you plan to visit a national park or monument this year like North Carolina’s Great Smokies or Cape Hatteras, get ready for lots of trash, dirty restrooms, poorly maintained trails and a big shortage of employees to keep order and serve visitors. And you can thank Trump and Musk for the mess.
For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.