I’m thinking of all the federal land held in the western states. The tax base is really constricted as a result. If the Federal Gov’t insists on holding those lands, there should be some kind of payment to those states for keeping them locked up. Then the eastern states, which already got the feds to release THEIR land, would have an incentive to do the same for the west.
“I’m thinking of all the federal land held in the western states.”
The solution to the issue of the federal lands held in the western states IS NOT for the federal government to make annual payments to the states for it.
The solution begins with the admission that the amount of land the federal government controls in the western states is (1) excessive and (2) mostly does not fit the Constitution’s definition of legitimate federal property, which is not merely control for control’s sake but must be serving a public purpose. Claiming mere control is for “the public trust” is a chimera and just another excuse for control. The intent of the foundations was that all legitimate federal property, of any kind, is property BEING PUT TO USE, not merely being held “for posterity”.
The federal government should be forced to determine what specific parcels of federal land in the west it has, or can and will put to “public use” and mere holding it in the name of the public IS NOT a public use. Then, among the remainder, 1/2 (within each state) should be returned to the states and 1/2 auctioned off, with proceeds helping to pay off some of the national debt.