Federal Government Policy and Business

Trump has long vowed to slash government. Now the knives are finally coming out.

The Washington Post: The four muskrats last roamed free on Nov. 20, 1908, near Farmington, N.M., when Clarence Birdseye trapped, skinned and delivered them to the nation’s capital.

The naturalist would go on to become famous as the father of the frozen food industry. But on that fall day, Birdseye worked for one of the most prestigious scientific divisions in the U.S. government, a place now known as the Biological Survey Unit.

More than 100 years later, the historic division is targeted for closure, part of a sweeping budget-cutting campaign by the Trump administration. With lawmakers poised next month to approve new priorities for agency funding for the first time since the president took office, the bureaucratic bloodletting can officially begin.

The Biological Survey Unit is hardly the only entity facing extinction. Dozens of long-standing programs are slated for termination, and every agency, large and small, has submitted a plan to the White House for reorganization.

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