1. United States
2. Fla.
3. Letter

A re-direction of my tax dollars away from managing our national parks to line Trumps cronies pockets with no bid contracts on vanity projects in DC must stop. Trump has redirected taxpayer money from national parks around the country to his own projects, leaving the parks unable to make needed repairs or hire staff. Expected funding for more than 900 Park Service projects never arrived—including $424,000 to replace a guardrail on the edge of a cliff in Colorado’s Gunnison National Park that National Park Service employees identified as “a significant safety hazard for visitors.” For some parks, nearly 70% of approved funds have been pulled back. Trump has also pulled National Park Service staff to Washington, D.C., for his Freedom 250 events, a crisis because the Park Service has lost almost a quarter of its staff since he took office. In his 2027 budget, Trump calls for cutting staff by another 3,967 full-time employees, or 31%. That budget also asked for another $10 billion to beautify Washington, a sum that is nearly eight times as large as all the money spent on National Park Service projects in 2025. The Senate Appropriations Committee stripped that request out of its marked-up version of the president’s budget. The administration appears eager to keep what’s happening in the national parks out of sight. Early this year, the Department of the Interior instructed its employees that they could not share information about serious injuries or deaths on public lands, instead redirecting all such information through the Department of the Interior’s Office of Communications. People have died. And the administration is covering it up. More people have died because communication is stifled. Stop the theft of my tax money for Trumps vanity projects at the expense of Americans. This is not his playground to do whatever he wants!!!!