{"id":300386,"date":"2017-03-24T01:01:13","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T00:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/thomas-jefferson-and-ben-franklin-museums-in-philadelphia-closed-by-trump-administration-hiring-freeze\/"},"modified":"2017-03-24T01:01:13","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T00:01:13","slug":"thomas-jefferson-and-ben-franklin-museums-in-philadelphia-closed-by-trump-administration-hiring-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/thomas-jefferson-and-ben-franklin-museums-in-philadelphia-closed-by-trump-administration-hiring-freeze\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin museums in Philadelphia closed by Trump administration hiring freeze"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin museums in Philadelphia closed by Trump administration hiring freeze<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Douglas Lyons<br \/>\n    <br \/>23 March 2017<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>The Trump administration has enacted a hiring freeze on government agencies such as the National Park Service (NPS) and has proposed a 12 percent cut to the Department of the Interior\u2019s budget, under which the NPS functions. The freeze and threatened budget cuts have already prompted the closure of historic and cultural attractions.<\/p>\n<p>Independence National Historic Park, located in historic Philadelphia, the birthplace of the United States, has been forced to close seven sites, including some prestigious places such as the Declaration House, where American Revolutionary Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, exhibits at founding father Ben Franklin\u2019s home and print shop, and the house of the Polish-Lithuanian military leader, Tadeusz Kosciuszko.<\/p>\n<p>Amenities near Independence Hall, including bathrooms, have been shut down because the NPS can\u2019t hire any workers to clean them. Visitors, including the elderly and children, will now be directed to bathrooms that may be located at considerable distances from the sites they are visiting.<\/p>\n<p>Citing NPS sources, Bob Skiba, former president of Philadelphia Tour Guides, told Philly.com that the hiring freeze was the main cause of the closings, and that it is not yet clear whether they will be temporary or permanent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen a group comes to the mall, people spend an hour and a half to two hours on tours\u2014and as a tour guide, when I bring people around, I\u2019m not just showing them the sites. I\u2019m telling them stories,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd [now] I don\u2019t have pieces of the story available.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Local Democratic Party officials in Philadelphia have voiced disagreements with the cuts, but&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2017\/03\/23\/muse-m23.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin museums in Philadelphia closed by Trump administration hiring freeze By Douglas Lyons 23 March 2017 The Trump administration has enacted a hiring freeze on government agencies such as the National Park Service (NPS) and has proposed a 12 percent cut to the Department of the Interior\u2019s budget, under which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-300386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}