National Yard Sale

[Shapley]

I know this political, so I will refrain from commenting on it. I will only point out that some time ago I proposed that one way to raise money for the treasury without raising taxes was to have a National Yard Sale, in which the government would sell off some of the lands they hold with no plans for development or utilization. It seems that this idea has been proposed, and the legislation is pending:

http://www.fs.fed.us/land/staff/rural/FINAL%20SRS%20Leg.pdf

Maybe my other idea, which was to buy the Baja from Mexico, and then sell about 60% of the land to developers, will see light in the near future.

V/R
Shapley

[barfle]

Too bad they didn't include the TVA, a thorn in the side of conservatives (real ones, anyway) since the 1960s.

[analog]

Do you have trouble passing up a yard sale? I do.

This site is sometimes fun to browse...

http://www.govliquidation.com/

[Shapley]

Barfle,

Perhaps the TVA will come later. At least this is a start. The current proposal limits the sale to $800,000,000 worth of land, with the proceeds to go to rural schools. In addition, the sale of the land will return it to the tax rolls, allowing a stream of cash into the counties and States in which the land is located.

Here in Southern Illinois, the Shawnee National Forest occupies large parts of many counties, as much as 75% of some of them. The landowners holding taxable properties in these counties must pay higher taxes in order to make up for the lost revenue due to public ownership of those lands.

The Constitution allows the government to acquire lands for needful facilities. Somehow we have determined that idle properties are needful, or that the government should own land it doesn't need and lease it at less than market value.

V/R
Shapley