High Plains moochers (Paul Krugman)

[struggle4progress]

... For historical reasons, the federal government owns a lot of land in the West; some of that land is open to ranching, mining and so on. Like any landowner, the Bureau of Land Management charges fees for the use of its property. The only difference from private ownership is that by all accounts the government charges too little — that is, it doesn’t collect as much money as it could, and in many cases doesn’t even charge enough to cover the costs that these private activities impose. In effect, the government is using its ownership of land to subsidize ranchers and mining companies at taxpayers’ expense.

It’s true that some of the people profiting from implicit taxpayer subsidies manage, all the same, to convince themselves and others that they are rugged individualists. But they’re actually welfare queens of the purple sage.

And this in turn means that treating Bundy as some kind of libertarian hero is, not to put too fine a point on it, crazy. Suppose he had been grazing his cattle on land belonging to one of his neighbors, and had refused to pay for the privilege. That would clearly have been theft — and brandishing guns when someone tried to stop the theft would have turned it into armed robbery. The fact that in this case the public owns the land shouldn’t make any difference ...

http://www.indianagazette.com/news/opinions/commentary-high-plains-moochers,19775041/

[blkmusclmachine]

1. ,

,

[Ash_F]

2. We need this guy for President.

He's always there. Always being spot on.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thanks. n/t

[yurbud]

4. Cliven Bundy showed it's time to look at how little we get from business use of public land

Grazing is probably the least of it.

From mining to fracking, oil drilling, and timber leases, are we getting what our assets our worth?

What do we get compared to what those companies would have to pay to use someone (or a corporation's) private property?

This is also one "tax" we can impose without being threatened with them taking their business elsewhere--Bundy can't exactly move his cattle to graze in Bangladesh and the Koch brothers can't move their coal mines to Africa.