by Laurence M. Vance
by Laurence M. Vance
by Laurence M. Vance
This land is your land, this land is my land,
From California, to the New York Island,
From the redwood forest, to the Gulf Stream waters,
This land was made for you and me.
~ Woody Guthrie, "This Land is Your Land"
My fellow Americans — this land is not your land. This land belongs to the federal government. And what it doesn't own it can take through its power of eminent domain.
The FY2004 Federal Real Property Profile
has now been released. In it we see that the federal government owns
more than 653 million acres of land. This is almost 29 percent of all
the land in the United States. The federal government owns land in all
fifty states, with ownership exceeding 50 percent in some states.
The following table shows what percentage of land the federal government owns in each state.
State |
Fed Owned
|
State | Fed Owned |
Alabama |
1.57%
|
Montana |
29.92%
|
Alaska |
69.09%
|
Nebraska |
1.36%
|
Arizona |
48.06%
|
Nevada |
84.48%
|
Arkansas |
7.17%
|
New Hampshire |
13.45%
|
California |
45.3%
|
New Jersey |
3.08%
|
Colorado |
36.63%
|
New Mexico |
41.77%
|
Connecticut |
0.44%
|
New York |
0.76%
|
Delaware |
2.04%
|
North Carolina |
11.82%
|
Florida |
8.23%
|
North Dakota |
2.67%
|
Georgia |
3.78%
|
Ohio |
1.71%
|
Hawaii |
19.41%
|
Oklahoma |
3.60%
|
Idaho |
50.19%
|
Oregon |
53.11%
|
Illinois |
1.79%
|
Pennsylvania |
2.50%
|
Indiana |
2.00%
|
Rhode Island |
0.43%
|
Iowa |
0.76%
|
South Carolina |
2.90%
|
Kansas |
1.20%
|
South Dakota |
6.19%
|
Kentucky |
5.40%
|
Tennessee |
3.24%
|
Louisiana |
5.11%
|
Texas |
1.86%
|
Maine |
1.05%
|
Utah |
57.45%
|
Maryland |
2.83%
|
Vermont |
7.47%
|
Massachusetts |
1.87%
|
Virginia |
9.94%
|
Michigan |
9.97%
|
Washington |
30.33%
|
Minnesota |
5.61%
|
West Virginia |
7.44%
|
Mississippi |
7.27%
|
Wisconsin |
5.63%
|
Missouri |
5.03%
|
Wyoming |
42.33%
|
The federal government also owns 24.67 percent of the land in the District of Columbia.
Yes,
the federal government only owns a small amount of land in some states.
This, however, can still amount to a chunk of land. For example, the
federal government owns 1.57% of the land in Alabama. That is still
513,913 acres.
In
addition to all this land, the federal government owns 411,415
buildings with a total of almost 3 billion sq. ft. of building area all
acquired at a cost of about $327 billion. The federal government also
has 59,036 leases on 45,261 buildings with an annual rental cost to the
taxpayers of just over $6 billion.
What
is all this property used for? The majority of federal land is
controlled by the Department of the Interior and the Department of
Agriculture. Forest and Wildlife account for 30.42 percent of the land,
grazing accounts for 22.2 percent, and parks and historic sites account
for 15.5 percent. Only 2.16 percent of federal land in the United States
is used for military purposes, plus only another .06 percent for
airfields. The cost of acquiring all this land: only $24.5 billion.
Even
the world is not safe from the tentacles of the federal leviathan. The
U.S. government owns approximately 1.5 million acres of land outside the
United States. There are 4,437 buildings sitting on this land that
occupy over 35 million sq. ft. of building area. The U.S. government
also has 12,738 leases on 12,446 buildings on foreign soil with an
annual rental cost to U.S. taxpayers of over $523 million. The United
States leases property in 167 foreign countries.
Why
does the U.S. government lease 733,627 sq. ft. of building area in
Bolivia and 790,704 sq. ft. of building area in Colombia? Is this
necessary? Do any members of Congress know about this? Do any members of
Congress care about this?
The
first step toward taming the federal leviathan is to confine it to
Washington D.C. Nothing short of the largest land sale in history will
bring this about.
August 15, 2005
Laurence M. Vance [send him mail]
is a freelance writer and an adjunct instructor in accounting and
economics at Pensacola Junior College in Pensacola, FL. His new book is Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State. Visit his website.
Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com
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