As a guy that works for the state, you’d be surprised how many employees are happy to bite the hand that feeds them due to a lack of understanding about how things work. I’m trying really hard to stay out of this because I’m fairly politically neutral. I prefer to simply engage in fact and frankly that is impossible in this day and age.
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While I agree with this statement.
There are NGO(Private) products that get used daily by all kinds of of business and people.
Weather Bell is just one application, that is subscriber based that has access to the European, Canadian, North American, & ICON models.
Industries such as Airlines, Air-Cargo, Utilities, and even SpaceX use a multitude of resources. The university of Utah MESONET is one of my favorite resources and I select ALL NETWORKS for the source data.
Is the current cutting of positions being executed in the best way? NOPE NOT EVEN CLOSE. However, in the climate that is 2025 and the demonizing of Elon Musk who just 2yr ago was the darling of the other party for things like SpaceX, Starlink, and Tesla. But now is called a Nazi, I’m sorry that dog don’t hunt. Elon has a proven track record, X(formerly Twitter) has more users, has advertisers with 80% fewer employees.
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If you and others believe this so much, why don’t we hear from you and/or others about the firing of the IGs whose whole mission is to discover all this “fraud and abuse”. What could go wrong without someone (the IGs) there to look over their shoulder. Maybe some waste fraud and abuse that they might benefit from? What is the reason the pentagon is off limits to rooting out all this waste, fraud and abuse. Why go after the “WF&A” in programs that account for 5% of the discretionary fed budget and not programs that account for 47%. Because they are so efficient?
As I noted earlier, I believe they have other reasons for firing employees. These might not be your reasons but they are using you to advance their agenda (see if your utopia or theirs has arrived in a few years). Aside from the non monetary reasons (Project 2025 anyone?), I believe they are stiffing contractors, firing employees, culling necessary programs so they can claim a bogus “saving” of enough money to extend their tax cut that is set to expire this year. The tax cut that I benefitted by less than $200 (I ran the numbers back then and I’m in a decent income bracket) while millionaires and billionaires benefited by…well let’s say a little bit more than that. There’s a reason our national income disparity has never been higher (even during the gilded age).
Firing some employees, cutting some inconsequential budgets, stopping some dumb studies is not going to do what some think it will do.
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The building that houses the supercomputer that runs the GFS model is a leased building… the lease was not renewed. By September if nothing changes… they will need to find another building to house a supercomputer.
NOAA employees and other governmental employees have had their credit card limits reduced to $100.00…
WeatherBell and every other program uses the base set of weather models. None of the NGO’s have their own weather model… everyone relies on the same ones. All are state sponsored( nation).
As I stated earlier… this is the Pete Wilson playbook with an insidious twist.
Pay for performance.
This time this is a move towards privatization.
As far as anyone being a favored person by a side… is there any other way than being monochromatic on this or any issue? Can you say what DOGE is doing has been done wrong without getting your card taken away?
The fire service was started as a subscription based service. Pay to get service. If your house was on fire you were obviously at a severe disadvantage in the negotiation process should another company arrive.
At some point that was figured out and we went to a government sponsored program.
Our patches that we wear are the current day manifestation of the old “markers” that were affixed to your home of the company you subscribed to.
Is there waste fraud and abuse in government… yup. Is it present in private industry… yup. Why do we suddenly feel that a private citizen who has never been in government service literally has the best way to run the country? BTW… he did spend 250 million to get that access. Is that how this works now… the
A country is not a business. A lot of people try and treat it as one… and then we spend decades trying to right the ship. I would also agree that the first people terminated were the IG’s… that says a lot.
I understand the desire to downsize… but this is not the way.
I spent my life working for the government and I have a deep distrust of private industry because of what I have seen them do. I also have family who have spent their entire life in private industry and have a deep disdain for public employees.
It seems we can never get to the middle because the sides have so much more drama….
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I spent 28yr in the private sector, 20yr as a business owner before “changing careers” having been a Volunteer, CWN, and now a professional FF working for an agency. I have a unique perspective. Yes there is waste, fraud, and abuse in both public & private sectors. But you fail to see a HUGE difference. In the private sector, you don’t have an endless bank account or do you spend north of 80% of all revenues on employees. Things like Fuel bills, repair bills, Insurance bills, etc all factor in to “The cost of doing business”. Employees, fuel, Insurance all get paid FIRST. Owners get paid last. Pvt sector work 5-days, 40 hour jobs then get OT. FSLA FF work 53+ and OT thereafter. Both public & private sector jobs have life threatened risks. The deadliest job in the world is a crab fisherman if you believe the media. Being a FF, a Hotshot I would argue is a close 2nd or even tied for 1st.
But NON OF US are/were conscripted into this or ANY profession. That is the beauty of America. FREEDOM OF CHOICE. Choice to drink 7-11, Starbucks, or home brewed coffee. FREEDOM. It’s what our county was founded on.
Human nature & specifically FF culture hate 2 things.
- Things how they are (I.E. Batching about needed change)
- Change. Non of us had this forum, level of communication or ability to obtain information and Situational Awareness so fast 10-20-or in my case 33yr ago when I began as a Volunteer.
Finally, it has been my experience that single career people (HS to College to career) lack perspective & experience to have seen and experienced other things, ways of doing things. I refer to it as “Silo Information” . As an example, 33yr ago Helitankers were new at 2,000 gal a drop. All my leadership saw was the price per hour, standby rate, etc. Most at first didn’t do the math for price per gallon, per flight time, etc. Today, “you can’t swing a dead cat” and not see a dozen or more Helitankers on a fire. 2024 was the first year in my career that multiple IAP’s had MORE NVG NIGHT FLYING Helitankers than day flying tankers.
Change is occurring, ALL government is bloated and inefficient. Choices & consequences as a boss use to say. Nov 5, 2025 a majority or Americans choose to change the status quo by a majority.
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You keep missing the point… it is not what you do that is remembered but how you do what you do… If you have never been in a leadership position where people expect and rely on you… then that is lost on you as a concept.
Change without a plan is chaos. Task-Purpose-Endstate… the basis of what we do. You all keep confusing private business practices with how to provide essential services.
The lasting effects of what is occurring will create a deficit in the qualified personnel to move up in the organization.
This is and will be a great lesson in the power of tapping into the worst part of human behavior. Create a narrative… force feed it to the public… watch them buy it… and then they begin to peddle your message for you.
If you go to bed with a dog… don’t be surprised if you wake up with fleas.
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Almost. The primary job of the Federal government in the beginning, was to protect the rights of white male property owners. The rest of the story to date is an historic attempt to protect the rights of all sectors of the population. Politicians are necessarily involved, by design, from the gitgo.
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Something to keep an eye on.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1006?overview=closed
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That is a pretty revisionist take, and a pretty modern interpretation.
I don’t really want to wade into this, but sometimes these claims need to be answered.
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How did we get here when the original intent was checking on our brothers and sisters?
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Good lord🤦🏼♂️
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I remember as recent in 2001 during a HR presentation for new employees (NPS).
Their were propaganda pamphlets being handed to new employees regarding why unions are bad for government, and discouraging employees to do anything other than meet with there supervisor in regards to complaints and department matters. I never heard about unions during my 14 years as a Fed.
Then I came to the State. Holy Mackerel…
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It started with good intentions.
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First Party System
First phase in the development of electoral politics in the United States, 1792-1824
The First Party System was the political party system in the United States between roughly 1792 and 1824. It featured two national parties competing for control of the presidency, Congress, and the states: the Federalist Party, created largely by Alexander Hamilton, and the rival Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican Party, formed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, usually called at the time the Republican Party. The Federalists were dominant until 1800, while the Republicans were dominant after 1800.
Wikipedia
end of politics
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So just wondering, all political notions and biases aside, how are the staffing levels looking for the Feds this year? I know specifically where I work I’ve heard rumors of potentially not being able to staff more than 3-4 of the engines by my forest, and this is also starting to affect crew staffing as well.
I’m hearing of potential LG contracts to cover forest DPA in R5? How is R3 looking?
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Everyone keeps saying, ‘Well, we’re not firing firefighters,’” the fire management officer said. “But that’s not the truth either. It takes a village to fight fire.”
Some of these crucial employees may, at least for now, be getting their jobs back. An independent federal board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, ordered usda-fired-federal-employees-probationary-osc-mspb) the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, to temporarily reinstate almost 6,000 employees on March 5, because there were reasonable grounds to believe the terminations were illegal. “We have not had any direction/interpretation from anyone on the court decision,” the fire management officer told HCN on the evening of March 5.
But those positions may still not be safe, as the Trump administration has repeatedly called for massive workforce reductions in the federal government and is exploring other, potentially legal, options to do that. Furthermore, the temporary reinstatement is only for 45 days. Immediately after the order, current Forest Service employees said they were still in the dark as to what this means, while fired employees took to social media to say that they had yet to be offered their jobs back.
A Region 1 Forest Service employee in Montana who asked for anonymity to protect their job said that 30% of their district staff were terminated. Many of them had red cards or worked other fire support jobs without them. “In a busy season, we would definitely be leaning on those people that were terminated,” they said. “They could help with evacuations, post information at trailheads, shuttle people or supplies to a trailhead, or take stuff back and forth to the airport for helicopters to deliver to on-the-ground firefighters.”
“It is leaving us woefully unprepared for fire this summer.”
Federal firefighting on public lands in the U.S. works like this: Resources rotate as the fire season progresses regionally. For example, Western firefighters and support teams are currently being sent to the East Coast and Texas, where wildfires are burning. They’ll head to the Southwest in the spring, and then, in the late summer and fall, they’ll go to the Northwest. “Normally I’d have a couple (people) down in Texas right now helping out,” the fire management officer said.
But because they no longer have all those red-card-holding, collateral fire-duty workers, there aren’t enough people available to respond to a local fire if the primary firefighters are gone. “I don’t see us having the ability to help outside of our own forest nearly as much as we have in the past,” they said. During the Senate hearing on Thursday, Beum said 1,000 Forest Service employees — including many who worked on wildfire’s incident management and command teams, hand crews, operations, logistics and more — took the administration’s deferred resignation offer, further crippling the Forest Service’s ability to fight fire.
All of this could have a cascading effect this summer, if forests are forced to keep their primary firefighters close to home and larger fires in other regions are unable to summon the usual number of shared resources. Severely understaffed districts may also require employees to stay in the area to complete basic functions. “We might be spending more time cleaning toilets, building trails or whatever we need for the district that usually is done by those other people,” the Region 1 employee said. “If we have a busy fire season locally or nationally, we’re not going to have the support that we’re accustomed to.”
Though snow is still on the ground in many parts of the West, the effects of federal directives are already being felt. The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in Washington rely on Bureau of Indian Affairs funding to employ tribal members as wildland firefighters. According to reporting by State line for-indian-country-federal-cuts-decimate-core-tribal-programs.Trump’s freeze on federal hiring “has halted the onboarding process for those staffers.”
The Bureau of Land Management’s fire resources are also being impacted by the mass layoffs. A BLM employee who works in fires and fuels planning, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, said most if not all the employees in BLM field units are red-carded and able to contribute to local fire response. It’s common for these employees to work as [resource advisors fire-crews-do-more-than-fight-fires/), protecting species, cultural items and other natural resources from wildfire and fire-suppression activities.
The timing of the government chaos and uncertainty couldn’t be worse, the BLM employee said: “The disruption happening at this time of year is taking attention away from fire season preparation.”
And a busy fire season is already stacking up. The National Interagency Fire Center has forecast above-normal temperatures for the Southwest and Great Basin starting this month, meaning these regions have an above-normal potential for wildfires. Meanwhile, above-average potential for wildfires in Alaska is expected to start in April, and come May, Southern California is predicted to have increased potential for wildfires, too.
high-country-news-
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Revisions that happen to be true; truths which have ramifications to this day.
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Well, looking from the paperwork side, Forestry Technicians are not firefighters, are they ?
Said with tongue firmly in cheek.
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