Posted on 08/17/2005 5:52:07 AM PDT by Remember_Salamis
This Land Is Not Your Land by Laurence M. Vance Vance Publications
This land is your land, this land is my land, From California, to the New York Island, From the redwood forest, to the Gulf Stream waters, This land was made for you and me.
~ Woody Guthrie, "This Land is Your Land"
My fellow Americans – this land is not your land. This land belongs to the federal government. And what it doesn’t own it can take through its power of eminent domain.
The FY2004 Federal Real Property Profile has now been released. In it we see that the federal government owns more than 653 million acres of land. This is almost 29 percent of all the land in the United States. The federal government owns land in all fifty states, with ownership exceeding 50 percent in some states.
The following table shows what percentage of land the federal government owns in each state.
State Fed Owned
Alabama 1.57%
Alaska 69.09%
Arizona 48.06%
Arkansas 7.17%
California 45.30%
Colorado 36.63%
Connecticut 0.44%
Delaware 2.04%
Florida 8.23%
Georgia 3.78%
Hawaii 19.41%
Idaho 50.19%
Illinois 1.79%
Indiana 2.00%
Iowa 0.76%
Kansas 1.20%
Kentucky 5.40%
Louisiana 5.11%
Maine 1.05%
Maryland 2.83%
Massachusetts 1.87%
Michigan 9.97%
Minnesota 5.61%
Mississippi 7.27%
Missouri 5.03%
Montana 29.92%
Nebraska 1.36%
Nevada 84.48%
New Hampshire 13.45%
New Jersey 3.08%
New Mexico 41.77%
New York 0.76%
North Carolina 11.82%
North Dakota 2.67%
Ohio 1.71%
Oklahoma 3.60%
Oregon 53.11%
Pennsylvania 2.50%
Rhode Island 0.43%
South Carolina 2.90%
South Dakota 6.19%
Tennessee 3.24%
Texas 1.86%
Utah 57.45%
Vermont 7.47%
Virginia 9.94%
Washington 30.33%
West Virginia 7.44%
Wisconsin 5.63%
Wyoming 42.33%
The federal government also owns 24.67 percent of the land in the District of Columbia.
Yes, the federal government only owns a small amount of land in some states. This, however, can still amount to a chunk of land. For example, the federal government owns 1.57% of the land in Alabama. That is still 513,913 acres.
In addition to all this land, the federal government owns 411,415 buildings with a total of almost 3 billion sq. ft. of building area all acquired at a cost of about $327 billion. The federal government also has 59,036 leases on 45,261 buildings with an annual rental cost to the taxpayers of just over $6 billion.
What is all this property used for? The majority of federal land is controlled by the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture. Forest and Wildlife account for 30.42 percent of the land, grazing accounts for 22.2 percent, and parks and historic sites account for 15.5 percent. Only 2.16 percent of federal land in the United States is used for military purposes, plus only another .06 percent for airfields. The cost of acquiring all this land: only $24.5 billion.
Even the world is not safe from the tentacles of the federal leviathan. The U.S. government owns approximately 1.5 million acres of land outside the United States. There are 4,437 buildings sitting on this land that occupy over 35 million sq. ft. of building area. The U.S. government also has 12,738 leases on 12,446 buildings on foreign soil with an annual rental cost to U.S. taxpayers of over $523 million. The United States leases property in 167 foreign countries.
Why does the U.S. government lease 733,627 sq. ft. of building area in Bolivia and 790,704 sq. ft. of building area in Colombia? Is this necessary? Do any members of Congress know about this? Do any members of Congress care about this?
To say that our government is too big would be the understatement of the century, but that is really the most accurate way to describe it. Yes, the federal government is too wasteful. And yes, the federal government is too expensive. And yes again, the federal government is too intrusive. But these things are true in a large part because the government is just plain too big.
The first step toward taming the federal leviathan is to confine it to Washington D.C. Nothing short of the largest land sale in history will bring this about.
August 15, 2005
Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] is a freelance writer and an adjunct instructor in accounting and economics at Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, FL.
And then claim it back under emminent domain after it's paid for. A brilliant scheme.
No wonder it begins with a quote from Woody Guthrie, a vile Communist scumbag who supported 100% government ownership of all land in the USA through outright confiscation.
Didn't I read somewhere that the Fed. Govt. could only own 10 square miles of land, that being the Capitol Bldg etc in Washington D.C.?
The stats are from a Federal Government report! The Feds own a higher percentage of the land in the 50 states than they do in the District of Colombia!
Private property is an illusion.
The house and land I bought is owned by the State.
I can't even get a screen porch built in my backyard without going through all kinds of red tape with the zoning board.
Property taxes also prevents it from being your land. Stop paying them and see how long you live there.
Property taxes also prevents it from being your land. Stop paying them and see how long you live there.
And try not paying property taxes on that land you "own".
That is what I meant when I said the State owns "my" property I paid for.
I find Thomas Jefferson's idea of what the public school system should have been better each day.
The biggest problem concerning Federally owned land is clearly in the western states. It originates mostly from history and not design. The eastern states began as colonies where from the 1600s to the late 1700s land gradually passed from the crown to private hands through charters, land grants and the such.
The western states were acquired wholesale by acts of the Federal government and only became states later. The states maybe could have altered the ownership mix, to more state and less federal ownership, upon statehood. I am not clear on the history of why that did not happen.
But residents of western states should be clear in their understanding that had the state governments acquired most of the land immediately upon getting statehood, there is nothing, historically, to suggest that the "government", via the state governments, would not be the largest landowners in the western states today. Give a government power and it is most likely to try to hang onto it; no matter what the political ideology of those in the government.
Be sure that if you want the FEDERAL government to sell lands in the states that you don't want to allow the state governments to be among the bidders. However, if anyone could ever get such land sales to occur, I doubt you could prevent the state governments from being among the bidders or that the state governments not wind up acquiring most of the land.
Good luck.
This stands to reason, seeing that the federal government was the original owner by purchase/conquest of all the states west of the Mississippi except HI and TX as well as owner by purchase of much of the land east of it.
The federal government owns considerably less of the continental states than it did in 1815.
The fedral government owned 100% of AK - why is it shocking that it still owns 70%?
I'm sure you've read it. However, it remains patently untrue.
Actually, land holdings n the Western States has grown exponentially in the past century or so (after acquisition). hgundreds of millions of acres have been seized as "enviornmental protection zones". Midwestern States, which WERE BOUGHT, have very low federal government ownership ratios. Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio
Illinois, Texas, Indiana, North Dakota, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri, Louisiana, Kentucky, Minnesota
Wisconsin, South Dakota, Arkansas, and Mississippi are all under 10% ownership rates, yet did not get thier land through "the crown".
They once owned 100% of all land West of the Mississippi. My point is that DC is supposed to be THE federal government, but less of it is owned by the feds than the rest of the country.
The boundless claim that the feds are holding land nobody wants to buy is BS.
If the Federal Government wanted to sell it, they COULD EASILY. They could even sell it for $1 and acre and make a lot of the land's value back in tax revenue off the property flip by the prospector.
Tell me about it! I pay 2.25% of my home's value in property taxes every year!
DEA? Embassy?
Should have been written "leases out".
I see. Thanks.
OK, but frankly, that's not much of a point.
The boundless claim that the feds are holding land nobody wants to buy is BS.
I don't think that's a commonly made claim.
Millions of people would love to own national park land, which if I am not mistaken is the bulk of the land in question.
If the Federal Government wanted to sell it, they COULD EASILY.
The government sells land every year. Easily.
They could even sell it for $1 and acre and make a lot of the land's value back in tax revenue off the property flip by the prospector.
The argument against that would be that the federal government's land belongs to the taxpayers and selling land for a dollar an acre would be screwing taxpayers over.
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