- Outdoor columnist Ben Smith ponders the impact federal cuts will have on national parks and historical sites, not only in Mississippi but nationwide.
You can’t turn on the news or read any news source these days without coming across something pertaining to Elon Musk and DOGE. The newly created Department of Government Efficiency is making waves with findings of serious misuse of taxpayer funds, at least according to what I hear and read. I’m not sure what will be done with this money now that it isn’t supposedly being spent on whatever it was being spent on before, but until my taxes change and my bills are lowered, consider me a skeptic.
I think that most sane, tax paying Americans can mostly all agree that having someone stop the financial waste is a good thing. Of course, I’m also pretty sure that there are plenty of Americans that have been the benefactor of these so-called wasteful funds, and they won’t be too happy about losing their jobs. And for those that are losing their jobs, my heart aches for them and their families. If these funds were really put towards things deemed “wasteful” then it’s a shame that someone allowed that to happen in the first place.
Admittedly, I haven’t kept up with all of the findings of DOGE. To be honest, I’ve grown rather tired of hearing about it just like most of the rest of the news. For most of us, it’s no big secret that the United States government wastes money. I mean, if you think our tax dollars aren’t being abused, I have a bridge in Smith County that I will sell you. That said, I cannot form a solid opinion on whether the cuts being made are beneficial, or not. But I have been wondering how these cuts could affect the outdoor industry.
Sticking with my home state of Mississippi for now, I can already tell you that our Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks are greatly understaffed for what they need to do. We simply do not have enough agents in the field to enforce the laws we already have on the books. And have you ever had to call MDWFP for something? If not, check out the latest posts in the Mississippi Turkey Hunters page on Facebook. Those posts alone will tell you about the state of the MDWFP when it comes to customer service. As a disclaimer, I will say that there are a lot of people in that group that gripe about everything, but the long phone call wait times are a new development. I’ve also seen cuts in Mississippi in places like the Vicksburg National Military Park.
Nationwide, the United States has about four hundred national parks and historical sites that are maintained by government employees. The Trump Administration has already cut around 1,000 newly hired employees that help maintain these parks. Once again, I’ll plead ignorance as to whether or not they are actually needed, but that’s 1,000 people that woke up today without a job. I’d like to think that these folks make a difference, and our parks system will likely suffer without them, but I can’t be sure.
Wildlife refuges are another area that has been hit by the cuts. Around 120 national wildlife refuge employees lost their jobs in the last month adding to a steady reduction of employees over the last several years. The National Wildlife Refuge Association oversees 855 million acres of land and has just over 2,000 employees. Close to home, Florida has seen its already overextended NWR staff cut making it even harder to watch over and maintain the nation’s third largest provider of NWR’s.
After reading about some of those things, my mind began to wonder, as it often does. Just recently we hosted a real estate agent that specializes in land sales on the Southern Drawl Podcast. We talked about things such as CRP and WRP programs that benefit the wildlife as well as the buyer, or landowner. Those programs are government funded programs that really don’t offer much return to the government. With the way things are going, one has to wonder if those type of programs are on the chopping block in the near future. If so, could it be something that stalls people from buying property? Both of those programs are in place to dissuade people from farming sensitive land and both programs put money in the pockets of the landowners for doing so. Given the climate of the current administration, this might be considered a losing effort since they are giving money away for little to nothing in return.
And what about match programs such as the one we are trying to pass in Mississippi right now like the Wild Turkey Stamp? Currently, the federal government is offering a three to one match on funds created from the stamp. It’s a program that I’ve felt we needed for some time provided we use the funds in the correct manner. Once again, given that it’s a conservation and habitat improvement program that the federal government is actually losing money on, will these types of programs be shut down in the future?
Before you guys start chunking rocks at me and sending ugly emails, I’m all for cutting government waste. I don’t believe we should send a penny abroad until all Americans are taken care of. And I also don’t believe two million tax dollars should be used on things like seeing how Facebook food ads affect our youth (true story). But I am a little hesitant when we start cutting people and programs that involve the outdoors. It’s something that we should all (looking in the mirror) monitor closely.
Ben Smith
