Let’s take just your state, Jim. Why should the Fed control 45% of California?
It’s long been the most populous state. You know that the large portion of those acres would have been put to good use by industrious people.
What difference has that made over the years in the income of your state alone?
For Nevada, it has left Nevada just about totally unoccupied, a bit unusual, since prior to the Fed, the Paiute and Shoshoni tribes had the state pretty well divided up north, south, and central.
The feds should not control 45% of California, Or a large percentage of any sovereign state. The feds gave up control of public lands in all other states early on per the constitution except for those here in the west. All so-called federal public lands within sovereign state boundaries should be sold, homesteaded, or turned over to the states except for that land specifically enumerated by the constitution for the feds as necessary for forts, buildings, dock yards, etc.