When we think of our National Parks, the word “majestic” often comes to mind. Five parks even have “grand” or “great” in their names (Canyon, Teton, Basin, Sand Dunes, Smoky Mountains). They are big, beautiful places, and very popular among Americans–and those traveling to the U.S. as well.
Since January, however, the National Parks Service shed an estimated 13 percent of its staff through pressured buyouts and early retirements, among other reasons, as Trump and DOGE brought a machete to a budget fight. Trump’s budget proposes slashing more than $1 billion from the National Parks Service’s already relatively slender budget of about $3 billion ($900 is from operating–the rest are related Interior department cuts).
In a New York Times op/ed, nature and wildlife writer Ted Kerasote said that by April, the reduced staffing was starting to be felt, as parks terminated ranger-led tours and summer programs or reduced the number of days they were open.
But the impact might not be felt for long for this summer, as Trump strategically changed course–a pattern you may have heard called TACO–and allowed the park to hire 7,700 summer employees. A court ordered the reinstatement of a thousand probationary employees who had been cut by DOGE.
But the long term cuts are still being planned, and will be felt eventually and deeply. But it won’t just be at the great and grand park properties.
The White House budget proposal that seeks to cut $900 million from the parks’ operating budget states, “The National Park Service (NPS) responsibilities include a large number of sites that are not “National Parks,” in the traditionally understood sense, many of which receive small numbers of mostly local visitors, and are better categorized and managed as State-level parks.”
John Garder, a senior director for the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association, told tourism industry publication TravelWeek.com that those smaller sites are important economic engines for many local communities across the country as tourists spend money on everything from hotels to souvenir shops, part of the $21 spent by visitors for every $1 invested by Congress.
“We worry [about] places like Flight 93, presidential birthplaces, Civil and Revolutionary War battlefields and places that preserve and teach Americans about some of the more difficult chapters of history, like Minidoka, the Japanese internment camp,” he said.
Of course, whitewashing history is on brand for this White House which, in the opening week of Pride Month announced it would rename a navy ship named for gay civil rights leader Harvey Milk.
But it’s also on brand for what we’ve called the Plot Against Rural America–a form of Billionaires’ Blindness that doesn’t see much value in small towns and smaller places, especially places they can’t personally own. And sometimes it’s the small things that help make America great.
Donald Cohen
Executive Director
Image: Hillers, John K, photographer by Fennemore, James. Grand Canyon, Colorado River, Ariz. / Hillers. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/00649751/.