In several recent posts I have documented ways in which the Federal Government seizes land from both states and individuals. I am reprinting the map that shows the percentages of each state.
The preamble to the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Realtors® reads as follows: “Under all is the land. Upon its wise utilization and widely allocated ownership depend the survival and growth of free institutions and of our civilization. . .”
Get that? Let me repeat, “Our civilization depends on the rights of citizens to own and utilize their own land.
I was delighted when Author Valerie Richardson wrote a “man bites dog” story in The Washington Times relating how the state of Utah has decided to grab back the land the Feds took from them.
Richardson writes: ” . . .With the 2012 law, Utah placed itself on the cutting edge of the heated debate over public lands in the West. The federal government controls more than 50 percent of the land west of Kansas — in Utah’s case, it’s 64.5 percent, a situation that has increasingly resulted in tensions across the Rocky Mountain West.”
When land is taken out of the private domain and put into the public domain, the taxes that were previously being collected on the land dissipate into the air like fog burning off on a hot summer morning. This makes the burden of taxation on the remaining private property owners untenable. As a matter of fact, the federal government has made some states so poor through their land grabs, they must send money to help run them. This is ridiculous.
Returning land to the state does not make it taxable, but it does give the state the right to determine which portions should be preserved and which should be returned to the private sector and placed back on the tax rolls.
Surely we can preserve critical parts of our environment that need to be preserved without taking 50% or more of a state’s assets away from private hands.
Map of Actual Acreage in Federal Hands: For other and expanded map go to this site.
