Obama's quiet strike against the "socialist" label

Obama's quiet strike against the "socialist" label
Think the government should be run more like a business? Obama has just the plan for you ...
By Jonathan Easley


In the past two weeks, President Obama dramatically freed himself from his enemies' suggestions that he is too "foreign" (with the release of his long-form birth certificate) and too "weak" (with the killing of Osama bin Laden). But you might have missed a subtler move by the president that could further erode his opponents' push to brand him a "socialist."

This past week, the administration asked Congress to form a commission to fast-track the sale of "excess" federal property in an attempt to wipe some zeroes from the tail-end of the deficit figure.

The sale of public real estate to private interests has bipartisan support, but it's more significant than that: It's an indication that under Democratic leadership the U.S. government is beginning to behave as an entity that is concerned with such fiscal trivialities as ledgers and balance sheets. It's the opposite of state socialism and nationalization -- goals that Obama's critics on the right have relentlessly claimed that he's pursuing.

The administration has identified a massive asset class worth unloading. The federal government is the largest owner of real estate in the nation, sitting on hundreds of millions of acres of land that takes up about 30 percent of the country's surface. The value of Uncle Sam's nondefense real estate portfolio is estimated at $230 billion, and it carries a maintenance cost of around $20 billion a year.

If Congress moves ahead on the White House's recommendation, 60 percent of sale proceeds from properties the White House has deemed excess will go to paying down the deficit, with 40 percent to cover costs on other government-run facilities. In addition to the one-time cash from the sale, the government can begin generating tax revenues on land that was previously an expense. Just don't get too excited about landing a piece of the Grand Canyon -- the administration describes this first round of sales as "sheds, underutilized office buildings and empty warehouses." (The White House actually put together an interactive map of all of the excess properties.)

more...

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/barack_obama/index.html?story=/politics/2011/05/08/obama_s_libertarian_turn

Let them experiment with running their own country, and see how THAT works out for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_National_Parks_of_the_United_States

Selling off the people's land? Should we start with this acreage?

The fed owns far more than the parks. Which you'd get if you'd read the article.

'hundreds of millions of acres of land that takes up about 30 percent of the country's surface'

the administration describes this FIRST ROUND of sales as "sheds, underutilized office buildings and empty warehouses.

Yellow stone park for geothermal energy development. Ol' Faithful would be an ideal site to develop. The Grand Canyon to dam it up for hydro power. National parks to clear cut the old growth trees because they are better lumber than the induced fast growing trees they use now. Pave over the deserts with solar panels.
Who needs Nature anyway when there is money to be made.

They can fit a shopping mall around the cannons and gravestones. Who needs history?

How is this a GOOD THING? 230 million? Thats's months of military spending. Nothing.

I've had a lot of RW-types assert vehemently that this, that, or the other unfounded assertion they "heard somewhere" (probably on That Site...) is a "fact" and I can "look it up."

That particular meme is way past its sell-by date.

Just for fun, I spent upwards of 30 minutes Googling the following terms:

U.S. property foreign ownership

U.S. property ownership aliens

Land ownership U.S. foreigners

ownership U.S. land aliens

...and half a dozen other variations. To "look up" this "fact" is not actually possible unless you pull county-by-county land ownership maps, real estate property tax records, and IRS rent from U.S. real estate derived by alien owners records. And even then, you run into a long, long trail of property held by holding companies that require looking up to determine the ownership (domestic or foreign) of the holding companies, and many nested layers of property ownership and management.

Most U.S. States permit some form of land ownership by aliens, if not permanently, at least on a temporary basis. (Land ownership, by the way, is quite distinct from property ownership. One may own a "property" but not necessarily the land it sits on.) And it is certainly true that companies owned wholly or in part by citizens of other nations have invested in U.S. properties.

However, the whole "foreigners own the U.S." meme is essentially an appeal to parochial, jingoistic fears, and really not a useful or helpful part of any discussion among progressives or liberals or whatever we're calling ourselves today.

No one is going to cart the Statue of Liberty off to Beijing, or relocate the local office park to Mumbai, or demand that a local housing development start sending all its association fees airmail to Fez.

wearily,
Bright

because I am so tired of doing others work for them. If you want to know something, dont take someones word for it. Do what YOU did, look it up. No, no one is going to cart off the Statue of Liberty, however, when our bridges and highways are OWNED, and we are charged to use them, your outlook wont be so rosey. And dont say it will never happen. I once thought that the US would never torture our prisoners, but its now accepted by many.

You then challenge your audience to "look it up" without providing any guidance as to where the evidence that supports this "fact" is located.

A member of your audience seeks that evidence and does not find it, and says so.

Rather than clarifying the nature and location of the evidence to be "looked up," you make a scary assumption.

I feel quite justified in inferring that your "fact" is yet another scary assumption.

You may be attempting to use scary assumptions as a legitimate call to action along the lines of "Hey, everybody, think about the implications of this and take action."

However, you have substantially weakened the power of that CTA by asserting something as a fact without providing any association with a source of evidence that will support that fact.

Just for future reference.

helpfully,
Bright

Five years ago it was scary. It's more frightening now.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0227-20.htm

and the sale of federal property won't be enough either.

The RW is not going to settle for Obama being a moderate Republican. They're going to demand he be a conservative Republican.

Besides proven liars?

and made it as bad as Librul. I despise them for it.

n/t

Contractors being put to use, building and improvements stores selling more products, and privately owned property that will now start paying property taxes...maybe even sales tax revenues depending on the businesses that may take of these locations. Good move!

he's paying back the corporations who own this country to me.