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 ...
Oh I thought I read it was something Obama just did..
I hate him so much. Traitor.
Property taxes go to local governments, not Federal, but I can’t see local governments (except envirowacko California and Oregon) complaining about the extra property tax revenues.
The article said “buildings” and “land” and “oil”, it did not say anything about selling interstates or other infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia is buying farm land, China is buying farm land.
We do have land to sell - the wisdom of selling it to them is a different matter.
The federal government could start selling a lot of federal office buildings, abandoned buildings and so forth and thus free up real estate - especially in high priced markets like SF and NYC.
They could also return a lot of land that was locked up national monuments for farming, ranching, mining.
those countries are buying PRIVATE land not federal land...
Ya, if he can’t solve this epic D.C. mismanaged disaster in one fell swoop, lets just forget it all.
If you told all the DC drones they were being transferred to doublewides in a small town in Kansas, at least half of them would quit. If you told them their new offices would be on re-opened military bases and they had to live in barracks on base and eat in the mess, 100% would quit.
Although I have to think the frozen tundra of Alaska might work even better than Kansas.
Sell off the VA properties and give our vets free private insurance coverage.
And President Reagans Interior Secretary James Watt. The government owns about 40% of the land in this country, estimated value in the quadrillions. Sell it or auction it and use the proceeds to pay off the national debt.
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Yeah, seriously. Doesn’t even have to be to foreign or corporate powers; I’m betting that plenty of people would be willing to buy land.
So in other words, you prefer Hillary over Trump?
Sell it all.
The government is too big.
The key to eliminating the debt begins with balancing the budget. Thirty consecutive years of a balanced budget will eliminate the debt in its entirety. Yet Trump wants to embark on the biggest public works project ever. He proposes government-paid healthcare to those without insurance. He isn't even willing to cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood. So I'm really not seeing how Trump is going to eliminate the debt in eight years by offering the solution of a fifth grader.
Good idea perhaps, as long as the buyers are not foreigners and/or their countries. Otherwise NO SALE!
Yeah, sell it to who though? China? Saudi Arabia?
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Look upthread and see that might not be a bad idea, especially if they buy trophy land that’s worth a lot less than they pay for it.
But if you’d read the article, you’ll note that most of it is going to be sold to private citizens, according to his plan.
Yes, that’s the problem with Cruz supporters. Your candidate has no cance of winning and yet you continue to trash Trump.
You are just another group of useful idiots helping Hillary along with blacks and latinos.
Trump will win despite of your efforts.
It’s not just selling land; it’s extracting value from the land.
Like, say, oil drilling?
The Treasury Department is part of the Executive Branch, answerable to the POTUS. Put Treasury in charge if selling the assets and buying back then burning the outstanding Treasury Bills.
Obama has spent seven years showing us just how much can be done by controlling the bureaucrats in all the various departments and agencies — actually USING Executive Power. It takes forever for objections to arise and go through the court process, and then the agencies just ignore the courts for several rounds anyway.
We should encourage Trump to do the same until we are back on track and then cheerfully sign new curbs that prevent future Presidents from going around Congress. It takes a tyrant to undo the excesses of a tyrant.
The more oil you extract from the land, the lower the price goes. When it costs $70/bbl to drill oil that is being sold for $30/bbl, how much volume will it take to clear $19 trillion in profit?
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