Bush team seeks to sell public land

The Houston Chronicle reports that "The Bush administration Friday laid out plans to sell off more than $1 billion in public land during the next decade"

Sounds like a good start to me. Many people get upset when they see how much the national debt is. However, nobody ever tells us how much the national assets are. As anybody with any sense of economics knows, your net worth is based on your assets minus your debts.

So, when people complain that the national debt is too high (which it is), they also need to report that the national assets is some such amount to so that we can get a good picture of what our nations net worth is.

Now, to reduce the debt, takes 3 steps (just like in your home finances).
1. Reduce and Control your spending. This is step one. Anything you do after this will only be a short term fix if you don't get on a budget and live on a budget. You can not spend more than you make consistently and not get it trouble. Before proceeding to steps 2 and 3, you must get control of your finances.

2. Once you control your spending for a consistent timeframe (in personal finances it needs to be 3-6 months, in national finances probably 3-6 years), then you need to reduce your debt by selling assets. Get rid of the junk you don't need. Government has lots of lands, buildings, cars, boats, and airplanes. It has assets all over the place. Sell it!

3. If, after controlling your spending and selling off unneeded stuff, you are still in debt, then you need to bring in more money. In personal finances, this may mean working another job or working harder for more commissions. You have to increase your intake. For the federal government, this means raising taxes. However, the federal government has to be real careful, because raising taxes could actually result in lower revenues.

Anyway, I think it is a good idea for the government to sell off some land. I think they need to sale off a lot more and put it toward the debt, not towards new spending initiatives as the article articulates. However, I wish they would cut the budget by 15% first...