Amidst budget reconciliation efforts, a "midnight amendment" aims to auction off hundreds of thousands of acres of public land, prompting a bipartisan pushback.
If we lived in a perfect world, they would be putting the land up for rent instead of for sale, with the rent price being some proportion of the market price + some premium based on how much people care about conservation of that specific piece of land vs the utility from the government having more money to spend.
> Perhaps most troubling for conservation advocates is that the amendment redirects proceeds from land sales. Currently, revenue from public land sales goes into the Federal Land Disposal Account to fund conservation priorities and improve public land access. Under the new amendment, that money would instead flow to the general Treasury, effectively turning public lands into a short-term revenue source with no guaranteed reinvestment in conservation.
Trump really is more like Andrew Jackson than any of the European populists. For better or for worse.
I don't believe the Federal government had any right to the land to begin with. Doesn't it claim some ridiculous percentage of the American West (especially in Nevada)? Doesn't it rent out some of it to corporations for pennies on the dollar?
I'm all for the Geoist cause, but not at the Federal level. I'm not a nationalist. I think decentralized power is an integral part of the American experiment.
If we lived in a perfect world, they would be putting the land up for rent instead of for sale, with the rent price being some proportion of the market price + some premium based on how much people care about conservation of that specific piece of land vs the utility from the government having more money to spend.
Basically Georgism
> Perhaps most troubling for conservation advocates is that the amendment redirects proceeds from land sales. Currently, revenue from public land sales goes into the Federal Land Disposal Account to fund conservation priorities and improve public land access. Under the new amendment, that money would instead flow to the general Treasury, effectively turning public lands into a short-term revenue source with no guaranteed reinvestment in conservation.
Trump really is more like Andrew Jackson than any of the European populists. For better or for worse.
I don't believe the Federal government had any right to the land to begin with. Doesn't it claim some ridiculous percentage of the American West (especially in Nevada)? Doesn't it rent out some of it to corporations for pennies on the dollar?
I'm all for the Geoist cause, but not at the Federal level. I'm not a nationalist. I think decentralized power is an integral part of the American experiment.
The lesson of the Cold War is that the private sector is better than government at determining the optimal use of major assets. Auction away.