The incoming Trump administration will face a massive fiscal challenge, including addressing the huge national debt created by reckless government spending, maintaining the solvency of the social security system, and strengthening the long-overlooked military defense. But the question is, where will the funding come from?
According to a Dow Jones report, renowned economist Thomas Sowell from the Hoover Institution suggests an answer to this question that might surprise and even seem unbelievable to many—that is, from the vast lands owned by the U.S. federal government.
The land owned by the U.S. federal government is slightly more than 25% of the entire territory of the United States, so massive that it can only be compared to entire countries (and not small countries like Belgium or Portugal); just the land the U.S. National Park Service owns is larger than Italy; the land owned by the Fish and Wildlife Service is larger than Germany; the Forest Service's land is larger than the total of the United Kingdom and Spain; and the Bureau of Land Management's land is larger than the combined land area of Japan, North and South Korea, and the Philippines.
Some of this land is used for U.S. government facilities, such as military bases, but the vast majority is not. According to a 2015 estimate by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the value of government-owned land is $1.8 trillion (8.08 trillion Malaysian Ringgit), which could indeed contribute to the government's fiscal balance in times of urgent operational support.
Selling government land is not a novel idea. As early as the early 20th century, before the establishment of federal income tax, the sale of land often constituted a significant source of federal government revenue. The Reagan administration also considered large-scale land sales, but faced strong political opposition at the time.