Bush administration wants to sell a small portion of federal lands

Hat tip to Free Republic for this bit of news: The Seattle Times reported yesterday that the federal government wants to sell thousands of acres. What should be great news to Americans universally, and especially those out west, will be met with protests from terrified leftist special interest groups and like minded socialists. Why? Because socialism worships at the feet of the federal bureaucracy and any attempt to make it smaller or transfer a miniscule portion to private ownership is anathema.

According to this Times piece, a mere 309,000 acres in 30 states will tentatively go on sale if it is approved by Congress. Proceeds of the sale would be distributed to rural areas to be used for education in lieu of current federal contributions, thereby reducing the federal budget by $800 million or so.

The federal government owns a mind boggling 190 million acres nationwide, yet watch the ferocious fight to keep the drop in the bucket 309,000 acres from becoming private. A huge amount of money could be raised to reduce the deficit if similar land sales would happen every year. Privatizing large amounts of federal lands would also remove the government (our) cost of maintenance. These lands could actually become productive.

The critics will vociferously cry that the land will be plundered and raped by mismanaging ranchers who will populate the land with flatulating cattle or be ransacked by greedy Big Business developers, or worse; Big Oil could be allowed to pillage and pollute virgin land and our national parks will be threatened. Nonsense! They are already protected by the United Nations' World heritage Protection program...heh heh! So that argument won't work. No one is going to sell our national parks.

It would seem like a good idea to me to suggest to our representatives that the federal government has no business holding on to so much property and they need to start making it available to the American people (ie, bonified citizens).