Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Junkies and Compulsive Gamblers Sell the Family Jewels to Feed the Habit, Perpetuate the Denial.
The FY2007 federal budget includes a scheme to raise money by selling off as much as 800,000 acres of America's treasured public lands. I oppose any such sale, and I reject these plans to privatize our national lands.
I am dumbfounded that everything in America, including access to the White House and Congress, our seaports, and now, our natural resources and public lands, seems to be for sale to the highest bidder.
Those lands are national treasures, to be preserved for all, and to be handed on to Posterity.
It would not be conceivable to liquidate public lands, were America not a bankrupt nation. And we would not be bankrupt, had we not squandered our FY2000, $230-billion surplus on an illegal, undeclared war against an unarmed, third-world country, and had we not given several successive, massive tax cuts to multi-national corporations and the people who control them.
I'm going to quit my job. Then I'm going to buy a new car and a big house. Then I'm going on a 'round the world vacation. I'll live on borrowed money -- from China. Why not? That's the kind of book keeping that the whole country seems to be doing these days.
Actually, this land-disposal scheme is analogous to a drug addict or a compulsive gambler who mortgages his home to feed his habit.
Before we resort to selling off our family jewels, perhaps we should consider making the Mineral Industry pay the $7-billion in royalties that we recently waived from them. We might also hold accountable the war contractors who are responsible for the missing $9-billion in Iraq Reconstruction funds. If that won't restore our national solvency, perhaps we should repeal the tax cuts we've enacted during the past five years.
Members of Congress should live up to their charter to represent the People, and publicly declare their opposition to this idea, immediately. Our public lands are not the government's slush fund.
It's time to contact your Members of Congress. Tell them to start doing their job.
For more details about what you can buy, (for the right price), see America for Sale: A Congressional Report on How America Is Being Sold to the Highest Bidder, by the US House Rules Committee Democratic Staff.
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