Donald Trump comes out against letting states manage federal lands?

Twitchy ^ | Posted at 11:02 pm on January 22, 2016 | Twitchy Staff

[Oklahoma]

Some news to report out of Las Vegas where Donald Trump sat down with Field & Stream magazine for an interview during the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s annual SHOT Show.

First up, the GOP front-runner came out against letting states control public lands now run by the federal government saying, “I don’t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don’t know what the state is going to do."

[Suz in AZ]

He’s smart to give a status quo answer. He has to stay on his own message. Answering in favor of the states opens a new can of worms and drags him into the Bundy debate. Better to control the message.

[P-Marlowe]

Most of the Midwest was just given to the American people. It was settled by homesteaders. It is now land in the various States. Why don’t they do that with the west? Why has the Federal government continued to control most of the land west of the Rockies?

[Soul of the South]

Do some reading about Alabama’s management of its state park system for an example of how states can mismanage resources. The GOP governor and legislature have done a fine job of diverting funds from the parks to the general fund. Two years ago they were threatening to shut down the entire system. Zero effort to make the system self sufficient. Other states have closed parks, reduced maintenance, and cut hours.

Short tem and misguided management doesn’t just occur at the federal level. Many of the ills of federal management of public lands can be cured by a new president through the regulatory process, executive action, and replacement of appointees. A real president would develop a compressive long term plan for public lands and submit it to Congress for approval.

I spend about a third of the year camping on state and federal government lands. I’ve seen the best and the worst. I’ve talked to rangers and administrators. Remove the leftist environmentalist political appointees, and the bean counter bureaucrats who never spend time on the land, and return management of the land to real conservationists.

It makes no sense to just turn lands over to the states when most states are struggling to balance their budgets without the responsibility of managing millions of acres of gifted lands. I suspect Jerry Brown and the California legislature would love to take over federal lands and make them off limits to the people. Oregon, Washington and other Dem states would do the same. Some of the GOP states would likely let foreign companies come in, strip the lands of natural resources, and leave the lands barren like the Appalachians were stripped by loggers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

[BlueStateRightist]

You make a good point.

[vbmoneyspender]

Folks who buy into this issue against Trump are barking mad.

Some folks have lost it. I'm not barking mad. This is an indication of how Trump things our country should work. His first inclination seems to be that power should remain centralized in D.C. as long as the good guys are in control of the levers of power. That bothers me. I would hope it would bother you.

[Cen-Tejas]

Dang! You Sir get the NAIL and The Hammer for this thread!

I would not change one syllable or comma of what you said!

I wish all our resident Trump haters would read this and meditate on it BEFORE reaching for their keys!

I love Ted! But, he does not stand a chinamans chance in hell in this Trump year! I wish he would quit, return all the campaign money and begin to support Trump so Trump might choose him for VP.

[major-pelham]

Nice try. This is what he actually said.

DT: I don’t like the idea because I want to keep the lands great, and you don’t know what the state is going to do. I mean, are they going to sell if they get into a little bit of trouble? And I don’t think it’s something that should be sold. We have to be great stewards of this land. This is magnificent land. And we have to be great stewards of this land. And the hunters do such a great job—I mean, the hunters and the fishermen and all of the different people that use that land. So I’ve been hearing more and more about that. And it’s just like the erosion of the Second Amendment. I mean, every day you hear Hillary Clinton wants to essentially wipe out the Second Amendment. We have to protect the Second Amendment, and we have to protect our lands.

[boycott]

The economy is going down the tubes. We’re about to be $21 trillion in debt and it’s going to crash very hard. There has to be radical change in a short period of time or this nation is toast.

Who do you think would do a better job giving our nation a chance to recover?

Social issues are important to me but none of it matters if the nation is down the tubes. Trump says he wants illegals out of here. He says he’s against abortion. He’s given a tax plan I like. He says we would have FAIR TRADE under him. He supports the 2nd Amendment.

I like most of what Trump is saying. I like Cruz but his voice just grinds. I would almost rather listen to an hour of Stephen Hawking as I would Cruz. Sorry but that’s the freakin’ truth. The media would have a field day against Cruz. He’s just not a great communicator. Fact.

[cripplecreek]

I don’t give a damn about Alabama mismanaging their resources.

Its not my problem, I’ll worry about my own state.

[Jim W N]

I think Trump is teachable. I hope he’s willing to learn about this stuff.

[snarkpup]

Most of the Midwest was just given to the American people. It was settled by homesteaders. It is now land in the various States. Why don't they do that with the west? Why has the Federal government continued to control most of the land west of the Rockies?

Some history: In the Midwest, the land was immediately useful for farming, so there was an immediate demand for private ownership. In the arid West, there was no obvious (at the time) use for these lands, so the fed just kept them. They did not forsee the current uses that are now creating demands for this land (recreation, hunting, oil & gas, irrigated agriculture, etc.)

[don-o]

Continuing the abuse of Breaking News sidebar.

[FourPeas]

Can’t trust the states. What if they do something the federal government doesn’t like? What if Trump sees a better usage for them and the states muck it up? The land is there for the USA. To make it great. To use it to make deals. Just think of all the casinos and strip clubs that can be built. Big beautiful casinos with terrific fountains and great strip clubs better than anyone has ever seen...

[boycott]

Regardless of what the polls say, I believe Hillary would stomp Cruz. And he’s the one I personally identify with most of the time but he just doesn’t have the charisma.

I don’t like Amnesty Rubio but I believe he would have a better chance vs Hillary.

Fact is, immigration wouldn’t be the issue that it is without Mr. Trump. All the other candidates would have pushed it under the rug like the republican did with our last budget deal that approved all of Obama’s spending.

[5thGenTexan]

This is just another step in “making America great”...

[ifinnegan]

"He's a knee jerk liberal. He has to work hard at pretending to be a conservative."

Read this comment from seekthetruth from five years ago when Trump first started out at a Tea Party rally.

Now that I have heard Donald Trump in person, I'm sure his TV interviews were scripted. One can always tell how compassionate one is after you see them on TV and in person. Donald Trump made several of the same comments he has made over and over during his many TV appearances, but needed to READ THEM off notes during his Boca Raton appearance yesterday. Means what? That those comments and beliefs/stands on issues are not from his heart.

Post 75 in this 2011 thread

The thread was about Soros and Trump. This rally was the one where Trump was asked about Soros and said "forget Soros" and "leave Soros alone".

There was interesting talk about how Trump was Soros' tool to divide the Tea Party.

It seems that's the case because it is happening now.

Five years ago he had to read his conservative positions off cards (just like he read his Iowa ethanol statement the other day).

It took Trump five years to get his act down, and as you point out, he still hasn't mastered it.

[libbylu]

So fill us in on Cruz’s plan....not stringing together some platitudes about “Cruz will restore the constitution and unleash the power of the states to blah blah blah”, but his actual plan.
If you wanted to know you would. That is the point. There is no contrast on issues from DT supporters. There is no judging from the past, flip flops don’t matter, he is given a free pass on everything.
I can’t do that. DT and I fell out in November.

[P-Marlowe]

Any one of the current crop of candidates can trounce Bernie Sanders. Fact. If Sanders gets the nomination, Cruz carries 47 states. Trump might get 50.

Cruz has been a conservative all his life. Trump has been an establishment liberal all his life. At this point, the leopard spots are pretty much in place.

I do not trust Trump. He is saying all the right things, but he is a salesman. That’s what they do.

[Jim W N]

As you point out, Reagan had some learning to do also. Our whole culture since the beginning of the 20th century has been steeped in a mistrust of individual freedom in favor of government. Yet individual freedom as protected by the Constitution is truly what made America great.

Faith in God will bring a faith in individual freedom, whereas confidence in man and his government will bring tyranny and misery, the usual story of how man has manged thing on this earth for a few thousand years.

[cripplecreek]

Some history: In the Midwest, the land was immediately useful for farming

Most of it was heavily wooded east of the Mississippi. Here in Michigan it was wooded hills and swamp. Even today much of the lowland is too wet for farming and you have to pick rocks out of the farmland twice per year.