Public Land versus National debt

hillbillyhunter1 · 10-08-2009, 06:08 AM

Perhaps this was once suggested by someone else somwhere else. Anyway, the conclusion I came to was depressing.

I thought that maybe, if it came down to it, the US could sell a portion of its public land to cure it's seemingly insurmountable national debt. This thought came to me with great pain as I believe public land to be one of the few things that has been done right through the years. As an asset for hunting, camping, fishing, there is nothing better for outdoorsmen.

Though if we could somehow relieve ourselves of the piano hanging over our head that is our huge debt, I figured that I, personally, could live with selling off maybe 10 or 15 percent of the land or something reasonable.

Now the depressing part:

according to the source that I found, we have about 643.2 million acreas of public land. I had reaaly no idea about how much there was or what the total acreage of the US even was.
But, as I found out, even if we sold EVERY ACRE of public land for, say, an average price of $10,000 and if we'd incur no overhead costs, like setting up a bureaucrasy for the transactions, dividing it up, creating access, we'd still only come up with 6.432 trillion dollars. A little over half of our current debt according to:

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Wow. unbelievable.

Griswold · 10-08-2009, 06:41 AM

That is depressing, and says a lot about the thrifty nature

of our federal government.

Selling public land isn't the answer, though. I'm not for selling even an acre of it.

hillbillyhunter1 · 10-08-2009, 07:00 AM

Your right Gris.

Selling off an assett to pay down the debt would never make sense anyway as long as current spending is so far out of whack like it is.

It'd be like selling your guns to pay your wifes credit card while she's still on a daily shopping spree. A temporary, soon forgotten, and ultimately worse mess than it was originally.

James B · 10-08-2009, 10:39 AM

I have heard that much of our public land is already being held as security for out debt to China. However, I can't confirm that.

Fieldmouse · 10-08-2009, 05:55 PM

The selling of public land could happen in order to pay off debt but it would be open to all who felt like buying it. However, this will never happen. I predict society will wake up and begin to drill for our own oil and gas on our own public lands thereby collecting the royalties long before we release public land to pay off the debt.

We are sitting on billions of oil right here in America but are afraid to drill for it. You have to ask why does it make more sense today to go into debt trying to force the market into the so called green technology when there is no reason for it? The earth wil never run out of oil completely and we need to wake up to that reality.

emptyquiver2 · 10-08-2009, 06:25 PM

The political landscape will have to change before any substantial drilling is done here and off shore, unless you have a large bag of fairy dust on hand to dip the knotheads in.

Fieldmouse · 10-08-2009, 06:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by emptyquiver2

The political landscape will have to change before any substantial drilling is done here and off shore, unless you have a large bag of fairy dust on hand to dip the knotheads in.

Well think about it this way. What would happen to public land once it changes hands into private land? You can't stop the drilling eitherway.

emptyquiver2 · 10-08-2009, 06:49 PM

Aha, you have touched on a very interesting issue. I wonder how many Indian Reservations sit on deposits of oil and natural gas? I also wonder if there are any regs concerning this, with the Dept of Interior. I am not educated as to the scope that the EPA has on Sovereign territory

James B · 10-08-2009, 06:50 PM

I would have to SEE the liberals allow drilling here and even then I would have a hard time believing it.

Fieldmouse · 10-08-2009, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by emptyquiver2

Aha, you have touched on a very interesting issue. I wonder how many Indian Reservations sit on deposits of oil and natural gas? I also wonder if there are any regs concerning this, with the Dept of Interior. I am not educated as to the scope that the EPA has on Sovereign territory

Well the government has found they are sitting on many gold mines called casinos out there. The good news is that my state has found that if you allow indians to do it, you must allow the reast of the natural born citizens to do it as well. They can't have the monopoly.