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Surplus Iund and the budget

Click to see original imageBy N. laVerl Christensen Since President Reagan took office, talk of selling surplus public lands and other real property has been accelerated. lndeed there has been considerable talk of earmarking monies derived from such sales toward reducing the $1 trillion-plus national debt. Earlier this year President Reagan initiated a new property program aimed at improving management of federal holdings and at expediting the sale of unneeded property. with proceeds to gu toward national debt retirement. To implement the program. legislation known as the National Debt Retirement Act has been introduced in Congress by Sen. Charles Percy. R-lll., Rep. Larry Winn Jr., R-Kan., and Rep. Ken Kramer. R-Colo. Despite the President’s desire, application of land-sale funds to retiring the debt will never happen unless the new legislation is enacted. Kramer told the House. Back in the mid-1830s, the United States govemment became entirely debt-tree for a time due in part to a land-sale policy under President Andrew Jackson. Today the government owns some 744 million acres of real estate, mmly in the West, representmg 32.7 percent of the country’s total land area. it also owns W. 147 buildings. according lo a General Accounting Office report.’ 4Any major sale of the property would require considerable advance preparation. First. Uncle Sam has little idea of the land’s worth at this point. Values are kept on the books at original cost. some dating back to the nations founding. Washington Report. a U.S. Chamber of Commerce publication. estimated last January it would take lll to lil years for e full study of government-owned property and how and whether to dispose of segments of it. Obviously much ofthe real estate is in remote or moumainous areas, valuable only for special uses. A great deal of it is in federal use – property bought for flood control. parks. forest and wildlife habitats. etc. The task of lakuig a national inventory of current uses. luturc needs. marketabitity and market values should be pursued. Meantime, the idea of earmarking monies from the sale of federal property toward debt retirement makm sense. especially if accompanied by fiscal policies that would reverse the long trend of red-ink spending. The Percy-Winn-Kramer National Debt Retirement Act wouldn’t change current law as to what property can and cannot be sqm; il would only redirect where the proceeds should go.