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 ...
And cutting waste, fraud and abuse and junk spending by .gov!
I don’t see why.... I hate the thought of US territory being owned by foreign entities and it should not be legal!
“The key to eliminating the debt begins with balancing the budget.”
Eliminating the DEFICIT has nothing to do with eliminating the DEBT.
You have to understand that fundamental point before taking step two.
Any country which allows US citizens to purchase land there will give its citizens the right to buy land here. If you are speaking of governments, that can be discussed.
Citizens of other countries are already allowed to purchase land here and is not a problem.
I keep asking how your boy is going to win? Short of an alien takeover, that is.
Cruz never shut the government down. Only the Executive can do that.
As I said Cruz is easily ignored and his Senate colleagues did just that.
The essence of leadership is FORCING attention be paid.
You are correct it was Obama that actually shut down the federal government in some forms, due to the Senate and Congress refusing to allocate an increase in spending for that fiscal year. And that effort was led primarily by Ted Cruz. Even you can admit that. There weren't too many other people trying to stop the increase in debt limit. Just Cruz and a few other senators , and half of the house. Did trump have anything to say or do to offer support or help? But I am glad trump is finally supporting Cruz ( and other republicans in the past) efforts to sell federal lands to pay off the federal debt. Awesome. I am glad some trump supporters and cruz supporters can agree on that at least.
Not quite. Ron Paul wanted the land GIVEN back to the States and for the States to sell them into private hands. That is quie different from the Feds selling directly into private hands and earmarking the funds to pay off the Debt.
BLM has land sales every year. Just sayin’.
It was the HOUSE which stopped things such as they were.
Trump was not elected to anything. While nearly omnipotent he isn’t quite yet, still waiting to grab that Ring of Power.
Please quote the section of that article that says Cruz wanted to use the funds to pay off the Debt, because I can’t seem to find it.
.....”Citizens of other countries are already allowed to purchase land here and is not a problem.”.....
Chinese are already the largest group of foreign real-estate buyers in the US....Many of China’s rich have close ties to their political figures....and the political people in China are always connected to the rich people in China. They do business in the US together and the Chinese government ‘actively’ encourages them to buy.
When the Chinese purchased Smithfield Foods, they suddenly owned 460 large farms and became the top employer in dozens of communities all over the United States. ....there is more than one way to dominate your enemy, and the Chinese understand this.
Actually you will soon see our federal lands being used to pay off our national debt to foreign countries, primarily China. All those vast coal fields of Utah that were withdrawn by Clinton from mining are destined to be Chinese owned real soon.
Actually it’s been stated that our federal lands are being used to pay off our national debt to foreign countries, primarily China...so rumps idea is not new by any means..... All those vast coal fields of Utah that were withdrawn by Clinton from mining were bought by China.
1. Nations reimburse us for their defense (bill the customers we service & collect our receivables)
2. Bring back jobs would raise tax revenue (generate revenue)
3. raise tariffs on goods (Generate income)
4. Sell excess assets. (Raise cash through sale of assets)
5. Rework NATO (Cut expenses)
Why does all of this sound just like what I do every year in my own business?
Our govt. needs to view things through a fresh pair of eyes.....
Cruz’s plan only limited the Feds to owning 50% of the land in any State, and said nothing about using the proceeds to pay off the Debt.
So Builder is stretching things to say Trump is copying Cruz’s idea.
cba123 in the previous comment points out that unless we are bringing jobs back to America we are just selling off the country. Republican governor Erlich of MD tried/or succeeded in selling state owned assets, and was not reelected. The current Republican governor made no such rash promises, but did promise to cut taxes. He cut the bridge toll crossing the Chesapeake to the beach from $6 per car to $4. People notice that every day. Small but smart.
Regarding creating money out of nothing, I am reminded of a bank idea I had a while ago. Banks and other lend huge amounts to dictators in underdeveloped countries. Then when the dictator is overthrown the new government is saddled with that debt which is now resting in a Swiss bank and being enjoyed by the deposed dictator. We should have a very clear policy and list of countries that are considered oppressive to their people. We should state that anyone lending to that country with that dictator is on their own. A new government will not owe payback of the loan, lenders can collect from the dictator and his cronies.
A lot of mistakes in your attempt.
We will let it go with the Chinese coal field purchases from Clinton. IT was INDONESIAN, not Chinese and they did not purchase anything. He put the fields off limits and disallowed purchases and development of the fields in exchange for campaign contributions it is claimed.
Unless the Chinese start sending in millions of illegals to take the jobs there is no harm in buying Smithfield.
It is called capitalism.
You will also see more purchases of domestic property and industries when Tariff talk gets serious.
And before you raise the issue of China getting all of Smithfields products and we being sausageless, that would mean its markets are opened up to American products.
Others have informed you of how the Japanese purchases of properties worked out for them. I see no reason why Chinese purchases would work any better for them.
Great post !
Few private citizens would be buyers initially. It would be people like Archer Daniels Midland for cropland, and resort developers, and housing developers. Many pension funds and other investors with long time horizons who would use selling off small parcels as an income stream 30 years from now. Plus the resource extractors — logging, mining, etc. — which would still be subject to Federal and State laws to prevent clear-cutting and strip mining.
I still think it would be a small piece of the overall Debt elimination, though. I’d rather he focused on cutting down the welfare state, but doing that always causes an immediate dogpile by the liberal media. Remember the Paul Ryan wheelchair over the cliff ad ? Talking about cutting government departments and economic growth to increase tax revenues even with lower rates is much less likely to cost him votes. And talking about selling vacant buildings and empty desert land is equally safe.
Careful farming is “extracting value from the land.” Selling off our oil is eliminating value of the land. Some years ago my husband inherited land in Southern Illinois. We were offered $1,000 an acre for the underground coal rights. The coal was about 800 deep so we figured it would not hurt the surface so we sold it. Later we also sold the surface land and were paid less because the coal rights were gone. But the point is the coal no longer belonged to us. Same with oil drilling and selling which was also happening in that area. Farmers would receive 12% of each barrel extracted. If the government did the same, we would get 12% of the oil value and someone else would get 88%. Not a good deal in my opinion.
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