Five Looming Curses of Privatization | Common Dreams

Five Looming Curses of Privatization | Common Dreams

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 1. Public treasures sold off for short-term budget needs

In his 2006 budget President Bush proposed auctioning off 300,000 acres of national forest in 41 states. This followed attempts by both the Reagan Administration and Clinton-era Republicans to privatize public land.

Now, with continuing budget shortfalls, the Cato Institute and other libertarian groups are pressing for property deals, with the justification that land should be "allocated to the highest-value use," presumably making it available to the highest bidder for consumption purposes.

That brings us to Paul Ryan's dubiously-named Path to Prosperity, which proposes to sell millions of acres of "unneeded federal land" and billions of dollars worth of federal assets. He's starting in his own backyard: the state of Wisconsin is considering the sale of DNR land for some ready cash. The Path to Prosperity is based in part on Republican Jason Chaffetz' "Disposal of Excess Federal Lands Act of 2011," which would unload millions of acres of land in America's west. Worse yet is Rep. Cliff Stearns' perplexing recommendation to "sell off some of our national parks." Mitt Romney also chimed in, admitting that he didn't know "what the purpose is" of public lands.