[postpawl]

Why frame it as ideological though? That doesn't explain which agencies get protected and which get cut. The NTSB stays funded because rich people fly on planes too. But Medicaid gets cut because wealthy people don't need it.

Look at weather service cuts. They're gutting the National Weather Service while Trump's appointees have ties to companies like AccuWeather and Satellogic that would profit from privatizing weather data.

It's about class interests. Agencies that serve everyone or that rich people depend on stay funded. Programs that only help poor people get cut, or get privatized to benefit specific wealthy interests. Make the wealthy better off through tax cuts and new business opportunities, make poor people worse off through service cuts.

[frumplestlatz]

The cuts seem to be about defunding work around climate change.

[postpawl]

You're right that a lot of the NOAA cuts target climate research specifically. But think about who benefits from attacking climate science. Oil companies and existing wealth structures that profit from fossil fuels. Climate research threatens those business models, so gutting it protects those interests.

The cuts go way beyond climate though. They're cutting 107,000 federal jobs across agencies while defense spending increases 13%. Framing this as ideological makes it sound like an abstract battle of ideas, but it's not abstract at all. Real people are losing health insurance, real hospitals are closing, real communities are losing weather warnings. Meanwhile wealthy people get tax cuts and connected companies get business opportunities. It's about material interests, not ideology.