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Notes -
The weird thing is that this is how some government departments have reacted to cuts in the past. They cut the things that are most visible in order to drive public support to reverse the cuts.
This is an obvious tactic, it even has a recognized name if I remember. “Washington monument syndrome”, from the act of closing a high visibility and popular attraction to affect maximum outrage.
High level bureaucrats get to where they get by knowing how to play the game and defend their turf. Cutting their budgets is a direct threat to their power, so instead of trimming the fat they immediately cut into muscle and bone to cause maximum observable negative effects.
If you’re a librarian, instead of cutting unpopular programs or reorganizing for a leaner institution you cut staff hours at the front desk, maximizing wait times, then blame it on the mean old politicians who just hate children and reading. Same thing with national parks, I rolled my eyes when I saw they cut that locksmith and shut down the bathrooms, it was so transparently designed to be maximally disruptive and silly.
But this is just politics 101, its easy to see if you’ve ever interacted with any of these people.
Sinecures for the politically connected? Untouched. Programs and initiatives that play to the party faithful of radical activists? Reshuffled, renamed, hidden from view.
Beloved symbols that are popular with a huge swathe of the public? Tragically closed, so sad, so avoidable if mean old republicans and townies just learned their place.
Utterly predictable.
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