Many people are reeling as cost-cutters in the Trump administration wade into land management agencies and indiscriminately fire people. This is no way to sensibly evaluate workers and no way even to save money as the federal workforce accounts for only 4% of the annual budget, writes Riva Duncan. The big guns in terms of spending are Medicare, Medicaid and the Department of Defense, which together make up 60% of the budget.Duncan, a 32-year veteran of the U.S. Forest Service, knows many of the workers recently fired. She tells about two of them, both recently hired for their “dream” jobs, and now recently let go for reasons they found insulting and not based on evidence. “The land and people will suffer from [this] if nothing is done,” one told her.
Opinion: Mass firings cut the muscle, not the fat
