Government budgets are bursting all over the place. Yet, in Illinois they are spending money to acquire land. In the recent Senate budget, they have allocated $1,000,000,000 US dollars to purchase US land.

When the government buys land, it removes land from the tax roles. No one pays taxes-and it becomes a lot harder to utilize. All of a sudden government restrictions and government bureaucracies rule.

A lot of pro buy land advocates will cite the Louisiana Purchase as a good reason for the government to get involved. It was a good deal in 1803. But today it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Besides, the government used the land as bait to encourage immigration, and turned it over to the private sector so the land became productive. Can you imagine what would have happened if the government held on to it?

Environmentalists like when governments buy land. This allows them to utilize the bureaucracy to force their agenda down the throats of citizens. The government decides what and when certain activities happen on government held land. Drilling permits, exploration permits, mining permits, grazing permits all are decided on by bureaucrats. Lobbyists can lobby Congressman to curry favor for subsidies and pet projects that trickle into bureaucratic decision making boards through legislation.

Many will cite the state and national park system. I get that-but we have enough of those. Some of them are even too large-and many would be run a lot better if they turned them over to private operation. As Thomas Sowell writes, there is no need for a municipal golf course. Much of the land owned by governments is merely a subsidy for a special interest group.

When government budgets are constrained, they’d be better off selling off assets like land. Put it in the hands of the public and let them use it to create. If they don’t build anything useful with it, at the very least governments would get tax revenue from it. If the land that was purchased by a private entity was useless to them, they’d be able to sell it to someone else that saw value in it. Right now, the land just sits on the government balance sheet taking up space.

Economic incentives affect people and governments similarly. Big government only wants to get bigger. By controlling land, natural resources and other means of production, government can impose its will as it sees fit. When it comes to big government, you aren’t a constituent, you are a “subject”.

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