The Trump budget is horrible. Oppressively Horrific. So horribly awful in fact that even a Republican majority in the Senate is unlikely to pass it. Bad for health care, bad for the poor, bad for the elderly, bad for the disabled, bad for education, bad for special needs children, bad for agriculture, bad for scientific research, bad for the arts and humanities, bad for the unemployed, bad for the hungry, bad for parks and public land, bad for the environment, bad for rural development — and awful for wild horses. www.washingtonpost.com/… www.huffingtonpost.com/…
But sorta good for western ranchers.
To help ranchers graze more cattle on Public Land the Trump administration will use the federal budget to overturn the intent of Congressional legislation that they could not possibly change through legislative action, because it would be so deeply unpopular. The effect of this budget is in complete contradiction to the intent of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which was enacted to both protect wild horses and burros but also to preserve the federal land these animals inhabit.
For nearly 500 years, wild horses — descended in part from animals who escaped from the De Soto and Coronado expeditions — have been a part of the American landscape. Wild horse populations exist in the west, in California, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Arizona, Texas but also in Missouri, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Florida, and Maryland. For the last 46 years they have been protected by federal law, but under the new Trump budget — protection for wild horses will be underfunded. The result — mass slaughter.
The Trump budget would allow the Bureau of Land Management to monetize the wild-horse program, to run it in a more cost-effective business like manner, “including the ability to conduct sales without limitation.”
Wild horses will be rounded up and slaughtered by the tens of thousands, the hides turned to leather and gelatin and the meat sold for food. Some horse meat will be exported to Europe but much of it rendered to pet food. The federal treasury will save maybe $10 million dollars.
Who benefits ? Ranchers like Cliven Bundy en.wikipedia.org/…
Just four months into this surreal shitshow we are all suffering from Outrage Fatigue — and I’m afraid that is the single most successful part of this administration's governing strategy, to hurl so much shit our way that we can’t possibly oppose all of it.
This budget must not stand — it is cruel, selfish, stupid, short sighted and inhumane.
Every elected official who supports this budget — and the devastation it will cause, should be held permanently accountable — perhaps there is a Hell —at times like this I certainly hope so, but even if there is, it won’t come soon enough to hold the proponents of this budget travesty accountable — and just in case there is no final judgement, could we please just vote all of these soulless, heartless, inhumane, assholes out of office in 2018.