Getting Fired For Doing Your Job Well: The Everglades Restoration Edition

Sheril has the details:

That's what Florida Governor Rick Scott and the Republican-controlled Legislature just did. Embarrassing for Florida and a travesty for the Everglades.

They've dismantled the South Florida Water Management District-the state agency charged with protecting the Everglades. As The Sierra Club explains, this wasn't belt tightening, but an attack on science and more specifically an attack on Everglades restoration. Among the 280 employees laid off was Dr. Christopher McVoy, lead author of the recently published 576-page book Landscapes and Hydrology of the Predrainage Everglades.

So the scientists are doing some good, truly bipartisan work (FL governor Jeb Bush and President Bush supported the Everglades restoration) that makes the country a little better, and their reward is...getting fired.

We are governed by sociopaths.

More like this

I've often discussed on this blog how the advantage of having a fiat currency is that one can deficit spend when you need to (think of it as being on the gold standard, except that you can mine as much gold as you need, when you need it)*. Of course, if you deficit spend when there is no idle…
I've described how the Iowa caucus voting procedure is a ridiculous way to decide how might be the next president, but Iowa's and New Hampshire's insistence on being the first states might have cost the Democrats Florida. Here's what the Democrats did: Fearing likely attempts by big states like…
Yesterday, I wrote about how pediatric neurosurgeon turned presidential candidate Ben Carson is an excellent example demonstrating how the vast majority of physicians and surgeons, even highly accomplished ones admired as being at the top of their professions, are not scientists and how many of…
Denim and Tweed: Asking permission Last May, the Republican-controlled state legislature voted to amend the Minnesota Constitution, adding a thirteenth section to the "Miscellaneous Items" of the Constitution's Article XIII to declare, "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or…

Missing a closing tag for italics, I think.

Lays off people during a deep recession, check.

Dismantles a successful program, check.

Dismantles is because it doesn't fit their ideology, check.

Just mean in every sense. Double check.

Welcome to the current Republican party. We don't have a plan except to smash everything. Won't that be fun? (in the short term)

By albanaeon (not verified) on 25 Aug 2011 #permalink

I am baffled by GOP politicians who think that they will profit after smashing everything in sight. When the Empire lies in ruins and the hungry mobs roam the streets, they can play their fiddles in their gated communities. Maybe they'll have enough money left in the bank that they can buy wind turbines from China and recharge their car batteries.

I'm not saying the decision was a good one, but labeling every political decision that goes against an environmental cause "an attack on science" is kinda lame. And I'm sure it won't cause a single right-wing voter who thinks belt-tightening is more important than wetland restoration to rethink their view.