MINITER: Shrink the debt by selling federal land (vote in poll)

Raise taxes or cut spending for senior citizens, single mothers and soldiers at war? Whenever a federal budget fight looms, you can count of Democrats and their media allies to proffer this false choice.

There is a third option that never gets considered: selling surplus assets.

President Obama just turned up the heat on Friday, saying: “We can’t keep running the government on two-week extensions.” Congress’ current continuing resolution is set to expire next week. So you will soon be hearing a lot about “vital” public spending and the hard-hearted who want to cut it.

While nearly 70 percent of the federal budget is made of so-called entitlements and military spending, liberals say that only draconian cuts in “discretionary spending” (the remaining 30 percent) will close the deficit and slow increases in the national debt. They ignore the third option.

Land sales may offer a good, short-term solution. More than one out of every three acres in the United States is owned by the federal government. Parks, wilderness, grazing and timber lands make up about half of the total. We shouldn’t sell those. The remainder — roughly one out of every six acres — falls into two categories: urban land and military properties.

Urban land. Every federal district court maintains a registry of all federal land in its jurisdiction. It makes for interesting reading. Federal holdings range from trash-strewn lots and decrepit warehouses to downtown office towers and prime waterfront. Many of these properties have private-sector tenants who could bid for them. The rest could be sold at auction. Local governments might even agree to zoning variances in advance, enabling the feds to receive higher prices. What’s in it for the locals? Property taxes. The feds pay no property taxes, although they usually make a payment in lieu of taxes equal to some 60 percent of property taxes. Private owners would pay in full and their activities would create jobs—a double windfall for cash-strapped cities and counties.

Military land. The Base Realignment and Closure commission has shuttered some 100 army bases, naval air stations and other properties since its inception in 1988. Most of that land was simply transferred to other federal or state agencies. (The U.S. Navy maintains a web site to sell a handful of land directly to the public.) The surplus lands should be broken into saleable lots and auctioned off. It includes beachfronts, golf courses and runways ideal for private airports.

(Vote in poll to the right. Must vote to see results. Thanks!)

There is another treasure trove of federal land: undersea properties. Off the Gulf, Atlantic and Pacific coasts (including Alaska) are vast supplies of oil and natural gas. Some private estimates suggest that there is a 100-year supply of petroleum, given current recovery technology and current energy usage rates. The handful of offshore lands open to drilling are on long-term leases from the federal government. Selling the lands outright and opening up more undersea land to exploration could reap hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps trillions. Selling offshore mining and fishing rights would also bring in needed funds.

Shouldn’t we wait until land prices are higher? With a record debt and chokingly high deficit, we need the money now.

Isn’t it just a one-time savings? Only in part. The federal government must spend hundreds of millions per year maintaining properties and providing security for buildings and lots it doesn’t need. That savings would accrue year after year.

Besides, selling surplus land would create jobs, as the new owners put it to more productive use.

No, asset sales would not permanently solve the twin crises of the federal deficit and national debt. But selling land and other assets could reap $2 trillion, enough to push the federal debt back to 2008 levels. That would reassure creditors and strengthen the sinking dollar. By reducing principal, it also would shrink interest payments on the national debt.

Finally, it would lighten the load we are handing off to future generations. Wouldn’t it feel good to watch the Times Square national-debt clock tick backwards, for once?

Richard Miniter, a bestselling author, is a senior editor at the Hudson Institute.