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 ...
‘Yes, I realize that is most likely not going to happen.’
Congress will temporize and attempt to water this down. But then the monkey is on their back. They are on the defensive.
In the meantime, we are flush with oil, coal, timber, iron, etc.
‘Wherever possible, move things back to the States.’
Sorry, but the days of Taft are over.
We are post-Teddy R.
And at least this firesale would return land to the free market. That stimulates the economy, brings investors, improves our bonds’ credit ratings, etc.
However, I would not mind a percentage of federal park land going back to the states.
That’s the current debt as presented in government accounting. If one actually recorded what the government contractually owes using GAAP accounting, that number is much larger.
Either way, Trump is the only one to have a comprehensive plan to eliminate our debt using a variety of methods. He’s the only one discussing the debt at all, which I find shocking amongst so-called conservative candidates.
This is a winning issue against Hillary.
‘If those bonds are indeed retired and not renewed, then the overall debt goes down.’
Right. We can’t keep up quantitative easing forever. There needs to be substance to the value of the dollar. That shores up our credit rating.
With better bonds, paying off the debt keeps getting easier.
Even if only a fraction of these assets are sold, it reverses the trend.
That sound you hear? Oh, that’s just Hillary Clinton cackling all the way to the White House.
In order to trigger dynamic change, it helps to first have a plan that impresses minds bogged down with ‘static thinking’.
This wakes up ‘static thinkers’.
Sure, Hillary’s laughing.
She will rally the enviro-wackos.
BTW ...
‘Never before seen’ spring snowfall in Caribbean islands...
I like that.
I hope Trump gets into government union-busting at some point too.
At least free market unions must face reality checks long before they threaten the national economy. But not government unions.
If you buy land from a neighboring county, are you immune to that county’s laws?
Yes, the Creature from Jekyll Island describes the Fed at its inception. The Fed is a foreign owned banking entity. It is time to scuttle the Fed and make them eat their own debt.
Return the control of money to the US Treasury. Only problem with this of course is that attempts to implement this part of it has gotten Presidents' killed.
Selling them federal land to pay down our debt and taxing them on it would help.
“Ron Paul wanted the land GIVEN back to the States and for the States to sell them into private hands.”
Point taken. I guess it’s a moral question. But Trump’s idea has moral weight because all that debt was incurred on the states’ behalf, even with their consent, technically.
Only if the saved interest is not sucked into the maw of the Welfare State but it is actually the OTHER WAY AROUND - eliminating the DEBT can help reduce the deficit.
As I said eliminating the deficit has nothing to do with eliminating the Debt. You can go on forever with no deficit without impacting the debt in the slightest. It would only be reduced by paying it down not by having no deficit.
Still have no clue, I see.
There might be a thread discussing HOW we got to where we are but THIS one isn’t it. Your argument is based upon ignorance of the difference between the debt and the deficit. Don’t feel bad though, it is a very common mistake.
Reducing the deficit has NO impact on the debt, your causation is reversed from reality.
Reducing the DEBT could reduce the deficit since interest on retired bonds would not have to come out of current account revenues.
So the charge of ignorance is still correctly attributed.
Says nothing relevant.
Rumor had it that when Arafat died, that old pedophile had billions stashed away, raled from the monies the West was funneling to him for the ‘Palestinian people’.
Its a great plan, but unless you can reign in spending so the government stops borrowing to make ends meet every year long term it just buys more time but doesn’t solve the underlying problem.
But I’m up for it.
Sell a contiguous few million acres to the Chicoms and what is to prevent them from using any way they choose. Sell the mineral rights but retain ownership of the property. That way the regulators can have some say in what gets done on the property.
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