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Britschgi keeps it short and sweet in this piece:
The biggest landowner in the United States is the federal government, which controls about a quarter of the country's real estate. A lot of that land serves as military installations, national parks, and nature preserves. A lot of it, particularly out West, is sitting unused.
Much of this is in the middle of nowhere and unlikely to be developed even in the best of circumstances. Some of it rings existing urban areas or is interspersed among already developed, privately owned parcels.
BUT, there's hope:
With housing prices ballooning in the once-affordable Mountain West, politicians of both parties have started to seriously consider selling off some of that excess, unused acreage for home development. ... The current Congress might be the body to get the job done. In past years, Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah) has repeatedly
introduced bills that would create a streamlined process for selling off BLM land to state and local governments, but only if they allow housing to be built on it. Those bills might have an easier time moving in a Republican-controlled Senate.
Afuera todo, seriously.
50 sats \ 1 reply \ @kepford 17 Mar
Indeed. The US should sell its land to the people! End communism!
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Preeeeeach!
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I hope so. This has been one of my hobby horses for a while. There's no reason real estate should be so expensive in the western states. The scarcity is entirely artificial.
Designing an optimal auction system for this situation would be a lot of fun. Then, once all the economically viable land has been auctioned off, they can open the rest to a new homesteading movement.
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If the USA was a company it would have had a hostile takeover many decades ago. The slashing of departments done by DOGE would look like nothing compared to what would be done by real owners acting on true democracy (market forces). Land is a massive asset that could be better used by people and companies. It would create an economic boom that most of us can't even imagine. Only a government could be so wasteful as the USA. Its absolutely absurd when you look at Social Security. The fact that they blow through that money is all you need to know.
We are watching what really is a moderate change with Trump and DOGE. No its not extreme. It is because people worship the status quo and have never seen this before but its really not even close to extreme.
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I've tried to communicate this to people I know in the federal workforce, who are freaking out about how unprecedented this is. I worked at a university that went through a similar reevaluation of it's priorities and spending. Sure, it's stressful, but it's a normal part of any semi-functional organization.
On the land development front, Trump is going to be the best chance we ever get for useful reform. I hope someone has his ear on this.
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Yeah... good luck. People join government workforces to avoid the market...
On this train of thought. I was thinking this morning that if we had Ron Paul what is going on would look like nothing. And we can see what is going on now with Trump and Musk. The absolute hate, violence, and threats. The opposition is not only opposed to massive cuts. They are opposed to and shrinkage.
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Not only this but the vast majority of Republicans do not support drastic cuts. These cuts are really in the context of any business only a minor adjustment. A long overdo adjustment. Its really not even close to what is needed.
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Yeah, I pretty much lost all hope when this Congress pushed through the same level of spending. We've never had more public sentiment in favor of making real cuts and they just couldn't be less interested in doing that.