Posted on 02/29/2016 9:09:58 AM PST by reaganaut1
During the debate among Republican presidential candidates last month, Jeb Bush hammered Donald Trump on his abuse of eminent domain. But Trump apparently sees nothing wrong in having government officials force people to sell their property.
Trump replied,
Eminent domain is an absolute necessity for a country, for our country. Without it, you wouldnt have roads, you wouldnt have hospitals, you wouldnt have anything. You would have schools, you wouldnt have bridges.
And what a lot of people dont know because they were all saying, oh, youre going to take their property. When somebody when eminent domain is used on somebodys property, that person gets a fortune. They at least get fair market value, and if theyre smart, theyll get two or three times the value of their property.
This last assertion led George Mason law professor Ilya Somin (an expert on eminent domain) to quip at the Volokh Conspiracy, If eminent domain really were a good way to make a fortune, the Donald Trumps of the world would be lobbying the government to condemn their property. But that rarely, if ever, happens.
Put aside Trumps hyperbole about the supposed impossibility of schools, hospitals, and bridges without eminent domain. What I want to focus on is his claim that eminent domain is not objectionable because people who have their property taken make out just fine financially.
That claim is simply indefensible. The truth is that people who lose their property to eminent domain proceedings are almost never made whole.
(Excerpt) Read more at fee.org ...
I LOST a fortune being a victim of my former city’s ED process. I had 200 feet of river front on a 1 acre parcel. The city said “you didn’t build that” and took it from me to build a river front park. Turned out the city didn’t really need it and sold it for a massive profit and now the property has a multi million dollar house on the property. FU city. FU Trump for supporting ED for private use. FU Kelo Vs Conn. Everything I worked for was TAKEN because some faceless nameless bureaucrat wanted the property and the city backed him up and took it. I did not make a fortune. I got paid what THEY said was “fair” market value which was what I paid for it years prior in one of the USA’s hottest real estate market. I couldn’t buy anything in the city I lived in with the pittance they forced me to take.
I think it is not coincidential that eminent domain is a topic in the campaign.
As it specifically relates to Trump, I side with him. The woman was greedy. He offered her a great price and help with living somewhere else.
It is not a story of “bad Mr. Trump.” It’s a story of a greedy woman.
Eminent domain is here to stay, there will always be cases that are as you describe, and there will be cases where people got paid money for land they didn’t even know they owned and were quite happy.
So let’s get on with the real issues of this campaign. Eminent domain is not one of them.
Tag line.
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