Viewpoint - American: Foreclosed - Follow The Money Trail - Part I
Chairman Don Young (R-AK) of the House Resource Committee, with considerable help from George Miller (D-CA) and his cadre of environmentalists, were recently successful in passing the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), HR 70 1. Senator Murkowski (R-AK). is preparing to secure passage of the same legislation in the Senate as S 25, CARA would provide money for purchase of private property by federal, state, local governments, Indian tribes, and environmental groups. $2.4 billion per year would be made available from offshore oil revenues. Opponents of the bill say it would eventually eliminate ownership of private property in America. In so doing, it signals the end of Congress as an independent branch of government. The debate on HR 701 for all its exuberance avoided the fundamental question. Why does the government need our land? Basic economics tells us all wealth originates in the land and by extension the sea. The hallmark of a free society has always been citizen ownership of land. The hallmark of a totalitarian society has been government control of land.
A free society is, of necessity, a society in which the government must come to the people for its operating budget. A government that must depend on the people for its income must listen to what the people and their representatives have to say. The US was originally structured on the strict premise that the government be limited in land and resource ownership. Indeed, history shows us that free societies and private ownership of the resource base are inseparable, the degree of freedom and the degree of private ownership being basically proportionate.