Posted on 01/16/2025 1:35:00 PM PST by DFG
A populist proposal to auction off distressed federal government assets, such as loans, to pay for infrastructure and other policy priorities for working-class Americans is gaining renewed interest ahead of former President Donald Trump’s return to the White House next week.
Back in Trump’s first term in office, a bipartisan group of congressmen—Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) and then-Reps. Ted Budd (R-NC) and William Lacy Clay (D-MO)—introduced a plan called the Generating American Income and Infrastructure Act. The so-called GAIIN Act, for short, even won the support of then-President Trump according to an interview Kelly did with Breitbart News in 2018. But, as Trump’s bipartisan efforts stalled out when Democrats went after him later that year with bogus impeachment charges, the proposal similarly lost steam. Now that Trump is returning to the White House with a massive refreshed working-class coalition across racial demographics, though, the idea is getting fresh consideration from top members of Congress and power players in Washington. In addition, these members that were originally on board with the idea have moved up in a big way since 2018. Kelly is now the chairman of a powerful subcommittee on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. Budd is now in the U.S. Senate. And this idea is getting burgeoning support from top lawmakers beyond the original 2018 cosponsors.
What’s more, the refreshed and renewed consideration of this kind of proposal is being expanded beyond the original idea which was to just sell off distressed U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) loans and assets to now doing this across the entire federal government.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
They need to sell off empty buildings as well. There are federal buildings all across America
Sell, baby, sell!
After all, it was they who pushed and sold unmarketable degrees.
I like the notion of selling off underperforming goobermint loans. But this doesn’t go far enough.
The Feral Goobermint needs only enough assets to accomplish their Constitutional duties. That the goobermint is a land holder, landlord, on note holder is an assault on the taxpayer and it neefs to end.
Insurance company contracts and premiums need to be scrutinized as well.
Get out of the school loan business.
and refuse to renew leases on rented offices.
Ok, but don’t sell anything to our enemies!
yes
The federal government can collect years later, and it can collect more than just the debt.
Say George Floyd didn’t pay $50 to the IRS in 2007.
The federal government could make it so it could collect the $27 million paid out for his death.
The federal government can collect when Social Security would otherwise pay out.
Federal lands and federally managed lands of any acre or contiguous acres that has no federal building on it (BLM) that are not part of national parks, should sold off with 100% of proceeds going to pay off federal debt. States that want to reserve any of those lands for themeleves can but them same as private U.S. citizens.
With the caveat that no Federal Government employees or their families can bid or have others bid on their behalf. Call it the Feinstein/Blum Act.
“land holder”
In the 1880s a family homesteaded 160 acres here in Florida. The federal government might have been paid $5, or $20, I do not know.
Today that land would be worth around $100 million.
Any money the federal government gets is quite likely to get squandered.
The Post family gave Mar-a-Lago to the federal government. The government gave it back. The Post family struggled to sell it. It’s now worth about $700 million.
Recently a grove of redwoods was finally repurchased, probably at a cost of millions.
It might have been sold off in the 1880s for $5/acre.
Redwoods were impractical to cut down until early in the 20th century.
They can sell the Federally owned acres in the Rocky Mountain states to the states.
They can sell the Federally owned acres in the Rocky Mountain states to the states.
Good idea, but it needs to be expanded to include real estate assets and other hard assets to get them off the books and relieve the government of the responsibility to maintain them.
“should sold off with 100% of proceeds going to pay off federal debt”
The only practical way to deal with the debt is with a value added tax. I would limit it to corporations and set the rate at 8% to bring in ~$1.6 trillion year in and year out. About $1 trillion would go to pay interest and $600 billion could go to debt reduction.
Most services can be provided by unincorporated entities, minimizing the inflationary impact.
And put all those acres back to producing something and paying taxes.
I just finished reading the entire article (quite a long read) and all I can say is WOW! This could help cement Trump as the greatest president EVER.
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