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This pattern has been played out time and time again. The next steps will be: "Camp bathrooms are always so dirty, and there's never anyone to staff to help!"

This pattern has been played out time and time again. The next steps will be: "Camp bathrooms are always so dirty, and there's never anyone to staff to help!" "How can the bureaucracy fail so badly, I don't know why we even pay for the USFS if this is the best they can muster" "We should privatize this. Maybe we could even sell naming rights. Colgate campgrounds, anyone?" "(Private companies continue to run shitty camp, citing 'hey, at least we're better than the USFS')" "Remember how the USFS failed so badly? You can't trust the government to do anything!" It's been the playbook of every government agency that has not been funded properly for about a generation now (thanks, Reagan). Slowly defund a service so the quality degrades, then complain about the quality and say you couldn't possibly fund the service if the quality is that low. It drives me up the wall how bleeding obvious this is, time and time again, and yet, here we are, doing it again to the USFS, one of the most important agencies we have in (for instance) ensuring people have access to nature, preventing wildfires, managing our timber stocks, and sequestering carbon.

starspangled 2y ago
But this is the government failing! What's more, privatizing it to buddies with uncompetitive corrupt bidding processes and terrible contracts would also be government failure.
- Eisenstein 2y ago
  See, there is a difference between 'government' as in the workers who make the government run daily, and 'government' as in the politicians that make the policies. The parent poster you replied to is speaking about the first, and you are speaking about the second.
  - starspangled 2y ago
    No I'm not, I'm talking about the entire machine of government. Politicians don't make decisions in isolation. Bureaucrats and public servants aren't immune from incompetence or corruption.
    - Eisenstein 2y ago
      So you are saying that bureaucrats are defunding themselves?
      - starspangled 2y ago
        No. They certainly enter into and administer contracts with private companies that are unfit, incompetent, and corrupt though. I've seen it more than once. You didn't actually believe elected politicians all personally carry out the bidding and contract process and oversee the projects themselves, hopefully.
        Eisenstein 2y ago
        The person you responded to was making the point that by underfunding government agencies, then they couldn't do their jobs properly and then that would be evidence that government was ineffective at doing that job, which would be used to rationalize privatizing that job. Then you said that it was the government which was responsible for doing that in the first place so that is evidence that the government is bad at its job. I then pointed out that there are policy makers in government, and employees of government, and that the two have separate responsibilities. Are you saying that employee corruption and private contracts are directly responsible for government agencies being given inadequate funding and staff so that they cannot be effective? I seems to me that policy makers cutting the budget or not allocating enough of a budget for staffing would be responsible for this, and that private contracting is more of an effect of not being able to hire adequate staff.
        starspangled 2y ago
        > [...] The thread is right here to read. The attempted point was basically that privatization is bad, but the poster made up this convoluted scenario that seemed to miss the fact that this is a government service, and in any case horrible and corrupt privatization contracts are made by governments. > Are you saying that employee corruption and private contracts are directly responsible for government agencies being given inadequate funding and staff so that they cannot be effective? Also no. I'm saying what I wrote, no more or less.
- whaaaaat 2y ago
  This is the legislature failing, not the bureaus though. Like, USFS isn't the problem here. The problem is legislators hamstringing it.
oldpersonintx 2y ago
[dead]
jjav 2y ago
> This pattern has been played out time and time again. I wish more people would recognize it's a standard playbook, quite intentional.
gosub100 2y ago
> thanks, Reagan Who's the president now and why is he absolved of all responsibilities?
- consteval 2y ago
  These things develop over a long period of time and much of this mentality was planted by Reagan (and other conservative economists, mostly inspired by Reagan). The push to privatization is a slow process. We're seeing it catch up in many areas, particularly education. In the next coming decades, I'm not confident free public education will be viable or even available.
- whaaaaat 2y ago
  It's partly Biden, for sure. It's partly Trump. Partly Obama, Clinton, Bush... This partisanism is useless. I'm not a democrat, I'm not a republican, but it's absolutely clear that Reagan represented a policy change that every admin thereafter has been happy to uphold.
  - gosub100 2y ago
    and maybe he was right ? We have a "service" that can't even keep bathrooms clean. Maybe government is the problem?
    - kelnos 2y ago
      They can't keep the bathrooms clean because their funding has stagnated and much of it has been redirected to firefighting. This is... what this entire article and discussion is about. It's a little bizarre that you could take "maybe government is the problem" from all this. USFS employees seem generally great, and competent at their jobs. If any part of government is the problem, it's the legislators who aren't funding them well enough. That's not a reason to take management of the parks out of the government's hands; that's a reason to stop voting for pro big-business fiscal conservatives who want to trick people into privatizing things because "government doesn't work for this", when the reason it doesn't work is because they deliberately broke it.
potato3732842 2y ago
>It's been the playbook of every government agency that has not been funded properly for about a generation now Has the funding stagnated or has the mandate of these organizations expanded. Way back when Regan was cutting things the median USFS camp ground "with bathrooms" probably had an outhouse and the fire rings were probably literally old truck rims tossed on the ground, If a camper wanted toilet paper or a grill they brought. And when they wanted to move the outhouse or add more campsites they probably didn't do a formalized environmental impact study (even if done in house that sort of stuff still costs something) because that wasn't considered within the scope of their jobs. Funding has not kept pace.
- kelnos 2y ago
  > Has the funding stagnated or has the mandate of these organizations expanded. Does it matter? Expanding scope without increasing funding is functionally equivalent to maintaining scope and reducing funding. If the USFS is expected to do more, they need more funding. If they aren't getting it that's a problem. If the USFS is expected to do the same, they need at least the same funding (adjusted for inflation, at minimum). If they aren't getting it, that's a problem.

starspangled 2y ago

But this is the government failing! What's more, privatizing it to buddies with uncompetitive corrupt bidding processes and terrible contracts would also be government failure.

Eisenstein 2y ago
See, there is a difference between 'government' as in the workers who make the government run daily, and 'government' as in the politicians that make the policies. The parent poster you replied to is speaking about the first, and you are speaking about the second.
- starspangled 2y ago
  No I'm not, I'm talking about the entire machine of government. Politicians don't make decisions in isolation. Bureaucrats and public servants aren't immune from incompetence or corruption.
  - Eisenstein 2y ago
    So you are saying that bureaucrats are defunding themselves?
    - starspangled 2y ago
      No. They certainly enter into and administer contracts with private companies that are unfit, incompetent, and corrupt though. I've seen it more than once. You didn't actually believe elected politicians all personally carry out the bidding and contract process and oversee the projects themselves, hopefully.
      - Eisenstein 2y ago
        The person you responded to was making the point that by underfunding government agencies, then they couldn't do their jobs properly and then that would be evidence that government was ineffective at doing that job, which would be used to rationalize privatizing that job. Then you said that it was the government which was responsible for doing that in the first place so that is evidence that the government is bad at its job. I then pointed out that there are policy makers in government, and employees of government, and that the two have separate responsibilities. Are you saying that employee corruption and private contracts are directly responsible for government agencies being given inadequate funding and staff so that they cannot be effective? I seems to me that policy makers cutting the budget or not allocating enough of a budget for staffing would be responsible for this, and that private contracting is more of an effect of not being able to hire adequate staff.
        starspangled 2y ago
        > [...] The thread is right here to read. The attempted point was basically that privatization is bad, but the poster made up this convoluted scenario that seemed to miss the fact that this is a government service, and in any case horrible and corrupt privatization contracts are made by governments. > Are you saying that employee corruption and private contracts are directly responsible for government agencies being given inadequate funding and staff so that they cannot be effective? Also no. I'm saying what I wrote, no more or less.
whaaaaat 2y ago
This is the legislature failing, not the bureaus though. Like, USFS isn't the problem here. The problem is legislators hamstringing it.

oldpersonintx 2y ago

[dead]

jjav 2y ago

> This pattern has been played out time and time again. I wish more people would recognize it's a standard playbook, quite intentional.

gosub100 2y ago

> thanks, Reagan Who's the president now and why is he absolved of all responsibilities?

consteval 2y ago
These things develop over a long period of time and much of this mentality was planted by Reagan (and other conservative economists, mostly inspired by Reagan). The push to privatization is a slow process. We're seeing it catch up in many areas, particularly education. In the next coming decades, I'm not confident free public education will be viable or even available.
whaaaaat 2y ago
It's partly Biden, for sure. It's partly Trump. Partly Obama, Clinton, Bush... This partisanism is useless. I'm not a democrat, I'm not a republican, but it's absolutely clear that Reagan represented a policy change that every admin thereafter has been happy to uphold.
- gosub100 2y ago
  and maybe he was right ? We have a "service" that can't even keep bathrooms clean. Maybe government is the problem?
  - kelnos 2y ago
    They can't keep the bathrooms clean because their funding has stagnated and much of it has been redirected to firefighting. This is... what this entire article and discussion is about. It's a little bizarre that you could take "maybe government is the problem" from all this. USFS employees seem generally great, and competent at their jobs. If any part of government is the problem, it's the legislators who aren't funding them well enough. That's not a reason to take management of the parks out of the government's hands; that's a reason to stop voting for pro big-business fiscal conservatives who want to trick people into privatizing things because "government doesn't work for this", when the reason it doesn't work is because they deliberately broke it.

potato3732842 2y ago

>It's been the playbook of every government agency that has not been funded properly for about a generation now Has the funding stagnated or has the mandate of these organizations expanded. Way back when Regan was cutting things the median USFS camp ground "with bathrooms" probably had an outhouse and the fire rings were probably literally old truck rims tossed on the ground, If a camper wanted toilet paper or a grill they brought. And when they wanted to move the outhouse or add more campsites they probably didn't do a formalized environmental impact study (even if done in house that sort of stuff still costs something) because that wasn't considered within the scope of their jobs. Funding has not kept pace.

kelnos 2y ago
> Has the funding stagnated or has the mandate of these organizations expanded. Does it matter? Expanding scope without increasing funding is functionally equivalent to maintaining scope and reducing funding. If the USFS is expected to do more, they need more funding. If they aren't getting it that's a problem. If the USFS is expected to do the same, they need at least the same funding (adjusted for inflation, at minimum). If they aren't getting it, that's a problem.