Note the high road density just to the SW of Yellowstone National Park. These are timber access roads on the Island Park and Ashton Ranger Districts of the Targhee National Forest.
The American taxpayer paid for most of the clearcutting, and got little revenue in return. However, there was a local boom in wood products for about twenty years. Of course, there was a bust when the timbering was done. In my view the salvage program per se was not necessarily misconceived. I supported it for a period of time. The main problems were that it was carried out too fast, was too complete, and lessons learned as the salvage progressed were not applied to the salvage program in progress due bureaucratic inertia and direct political pressure for Idaho politicians.