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When the Cuts Hit Home -- Joyce Vance
Last edited Sat May 17, 2025, 03:57 PM - Edit history (1)
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/when-the-cuts-hit-homeI am not an alarmist. But we live in alarming times. The rampant racism and misogyny. The anti-immigrant fervor. A thousand cuts into the fabric of democracy since Donald Trump became president in 2016. And strangest, most frustratingly of all, nothing seems to break through to the American people writ large. Decent people, church going people, people who love their dogs and kids and would give a neighbor the shirt off their back, have fallen in line behind a deceitful, hateful vision of American white nationalism.
DOGE and Project 2025. Trump’s American nightmare took hold with a vise-like grip, a force that could be constrained around the edges by the courts but not controlled. Cuts in government services and employees, all in the name of efficiency, but not its substance. And as those of us paying attention have known all along, it was never about finding waste and fraud, because there wasn’t much, if any, of that. It has been, of course, about the grift, about corruption, about self-enrichment. The full contours of the long-term plans aren’t clear yet, but there are suggestions it is about accessing personal data so people can be pinpoint targeted by disinformation campaigns in future elections and plenty of grounds to suspect that this is about expanding Trump and Elon Musk’s personal portfolios.
The implications of Trump’s cuts to government services came into focus Friday, as a line of storms moved across the East Coast. Americans rely without bothering to think much about it on the accuracy of weather prediction services that warn us about when we need to take care. In California, where I grew up, that’s not as much of an issue—no one is accurately predicting earthquakes. But in Alabama, where I have spent the last 35 years, and other parts of, well, Trump Country, deadly tornadoes and hurricanes make it a necessity. Without forecasting, there would be too few visual cues before it was too late.
. . .
The Washington Post put up a map of parts of the country that no longer have 24-hour weather prediction services. In addition to the Kentucky office, there is one in Kansas. None of this makes any sense. I worked in government long enough to be a big fan of cutting waste. But providing lifesaving weather prediction services is about as far from waste as I can imagine. Why derail them? (Unless, of course, you’re planning on creating a private company to provide those services for a fee, but I try not to deal in speculation here.)
. . .
DOGE and Project 2025. Trump’s American nightmare took hold with a vise-like grip, a force that could be constrained around the edges by the courts but not controlled. Cuts in government services and employees, all in the name of efficiency, but not its substance. And as those of us paying attention have known all along, it was never about finding waste and fraud, because there wasn’t much, if any, of that. It has been, of course, about the grift, about corruption, about self-enrichment. The full contours of the long-term plans aren’t clear yet, but there are suggestions it is about accessing personal data so people can be pinpoint targeted by disinformation campaigns in future elections and plenty of grounds to suspect that this is about expanding Trump and Elon Musk’s personal portfolios.
The implications of Trump’s cuts to government services came into focus Friday, as a line of storms moved across the East Coast. Americans rely without bothering to think much about it on the accuracy of weather prediction services that warn us about when we need to take care. In California, where I grew up, that’s not as much of an issue—no one is accurately predicting earthquakes. But in Alabama, where I have spent the last 35 years, and other parts of, well, Trump Country, deadly tornadoes and hurricanes make it a necessity. Without forecasting, there would be too few visual cues before it was too late.
. . .
The Washington Post put up a map of parts of the country that no longer have 24-hour weather prediction services. In addition to the Kentucky office, there is one in Kansas. None of this makes any sense. I worked in government long enough to be a big fan of cutting waste. But providing lifesaving weather prediction services is about as far from waste as I can imagine. Why derail them? (Unless, of course, you’re planning on creating a private company to provide those services for a fee, but I try not to deal in speculation here.)
. . .
Map from the WaPoo article:
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