Privatize Government Property

The federal government's debt is close to 18 trillion dollars.   The federal government owns about 30% of the land in the USA.   It owns roads, parks, and mineral rights, including offshore mineral rights.   All of the federal government's assets are estimated to be close to 40 trillion dollars.

If the federal government would sell most of these assets to private corporations it could pay off its debt and have a surplus.

The federal government should set up private state corporations that would own the lands and mineral rights of each state.  These corporations would have their prices set by the State Utility Commission, like the Public Utilities Commission of California sets the rates the electric utilities can charge for electricity.

The California Park Corporation would sell shares to the public and the California Park Commission would set the prices the corporation charges for admission.

Each state would have a corporation that owns the roads and the utility commission would set the prices users would pay to drive on the roads.   The corporation would be much more efficient than the government employees, just like the electric utilities companies in each state is more efficient than if they were ran by government employees who can retire at a young age with a fat pension and benefits.

There is nothing the government does that private industry could not do better.   The government schools have twice as many employees per student as they had in 1950.   In 1950 about 16% of the USA population lived on farms.   Today 2% of the population grows enough food on private farms, which is distributed through private stores.  Imagine how many employees it would take to produce that food today if the farmers were government employees and the farms were owned by the government.

Since food is more important than parks and roads, if the government owned all the farms and I suggested we privatize the farms, there would be hysteria in the populace because people would be propagandized with fear from the government farm employees.   They would say the private farmers will exploit the poor and sell us tainted food.   “Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.” -Bertrand Russell