Posted on 04/03/2016 2:28:33 PM PDT by drewh
As president, Donald Trump would sell off $16 trillion worth of U.S. government assets in order to fulfill his pledge to eliminate the national debt in eight years, senior adviser with the campaign Barry Bennett said.
"The United States government owns more real estate than anybody else, more land than anybody else, more energy than anybody else," Bennett told Chris Jansing Sunday on MSNBC. "We can get rid of government buildings we're not using, we can extract the energy from government lands, we can do all kinds of things to extract value from the assets that we hold."
In a wide-ranging interview with The Washington Post, Trump said he would get rid of the $19 trillion national debt "over a period of eight years." The article noted that most economists would consider Trump's proposal impossible, as it could require slashing the annual federal budget by more than half.
However, when pressed on whether the United States could sell off $16 trillion worth of assets, Bennett responded affirmatively on Sunday.
"Oh, my goodness," he said. "Do you know how much land we have? You know how much oil is off shore? And in government lands? Easily."
The federal government's assets totaled $3.2 trillion as of September 2015, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. However, that does not include include stewardship assets or natural resources.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
HOORAY Trump
Donald J. Trump for President
One problem is that the annual deficit still has to be eliminated to stop the debt from accumulating again. If you use assets to cover an annual budget shortfall, eventually you’ll run out of assets and your budget will be imbalanced again.
A balanced budget amendment is almost the necessary first step in a plan to really pay off the debt and keep it paid off.
Yup, and get rid of Air Farce One...Trump has a better version! I've seen it, and it's a beauty!
Go, Go TRUMP...it's gonna be a really GOODYEAR!
Yes, per the following language from the Constitution:
“...purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings.”
That language is pretty specific. Didn’t see much about national parks or land taken by fedzilla to sell at bargain basement prices to the Chinese or Saudis, did you?
I see it as a desperation move like people who are broke selling all their good stuff.
It doesn’t help long term. They need to stop spending as much and bring in more money.
Nope, not a cult.
Where is the contradiction ? He said don’t GIVE AWAY assets. Now he says SELL assets.
Look at the map posted above. I will answer your question.
But wrt your scare scenario. Where does the idea that private interests would be inimical to museums or the Smithsonian? Almost all the major art institutes and museums are either totally private or, in the case of the Smithsonian, administered by the federal government. I don’t think it OWNS it but it is called “a trust instrumentality” as established in the Polk administration.
Field Museum
Metropolitan Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Museum of Science and Industry
all these and many more are PRIVATELY funded, and operated.
You can forget about the Federal Reserve going away, it never will. No developed capitalistic economy can do away with its central bank. Nor should it.
Trump’s “plan” or idea will not in any way mean that spending will not be cut. TWO different things altogether.
Trump commented on giving the land to the states wherever it originated.
As I said Cruz’s problem is no one pays any attention to him.
That is the essence of effective leadership, it cannot be ignored.
OMG, hilarious.
I have been reading through this thread looking for the one right answer. Thank you!
There are trillions of dollars of natural resources on federally controlled lands that have been off limits. Natural gas, oil, coal, copper, lumber and a whole lot more. I've been saying for years that the budget problem could be solved just by utilizing what we already have in inventory. All we have to do is go after it. We have what the nations of the world need. Let the world market pay off our debt. Those poo-pooing Trump's suggestions are really not too bright.
AL: I’d like to talk about public land. Seventy percent of hunters in the West hunt on public lands managed by the federal government. Right now, there’s a lot of discussion about the federal government transferring those lands to states and the divesting of that land. Is that something you would support as President? "DT: I don’t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don’t know what the state is going to do. I mean, are they going to sell if they get into a little bit of trouble? And I don’t think it’s something that should be sold.
Obama just gave $500 BILLION to the UN...Congress didn’t get to vote on that...
Damn that Trump. Always trying to solve problems. No wonder the GOP and the media hate him.
It was in the budget they approved....
If you are looking at the lump sum that would be needed to produce the current annual SS payments, that would be around 600k. Book entry those over — recipient gets the annual interest and can sell 3% of the total every year.
Yep. Louisiana Purchase, Seward’s Folly (Alaska Purchase), the Mexican Cession.
Even though the Constitution specifically said the Federal government was to own no land other than ten square miles for DC and whatever was needed for ports and bases, it clearly purchased all of the west from France, Mexico and Russia when the Constitution was practically shiny-new.
I have no idea how they justified doing that without an Amendment allowing it, but there is no question the purchases were made.
I applaud Trump for the attempt. But the economic idiocy of such a proposal is mind-boggling. Does he really think that bidders will show up at this auction with $19 trillion in cash?
I do like the idea of selling most of those lands back into private hands. It should be done carefully, though, and reserve strips of land and valleys crisscrossing the area for future development of highways and waterways and pipelines and railways and power lines. That way there will be no need to use eminent domain later to reacquire land for public purposes.
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