A rule we exposed six years ago is back
When Republicans regained control of the House, they immediately renewed their rule allowing giving away our government’s land without ensuring that we taxpayers get fair value for our property.
This is exactly what Republicans did when they last gained control of the House in 2017, the subject of one of DCReport’s first articles after its launch six years ago.
DCReport and the excellent environmental news outlet High Country News were pretty much alone in reporting this important 2017 news affecting taxpayers. This week a few more news organizations covered the revived rule, which is found on page 23 of the 2023-24 House rules.
The stark difference in how the two political parties value our government’s assets is clear from the new House land giveaway rules adopted by Republicans and the reform in a spending bill signed last month by President Joe Biden.
The new House rule says that the value of federal land transferred to “a State, local government, or tribal entity shall not be considered…” under government budgeting rules.
In other words, without a penny being paid, land owned by our federal government could be handed over to a state or local government or tribal authority. Never mind that the land may have valuable mineral rights or a vista of great value to a resort developer or even a flat expanse for industrial development.
These organizations could, in turn, sell or give away such land to profit-seeking interests.
Encouraging Corruption
Ignoring value does more than cheat Americans out of the fair value of real property we own through our federal government.
The new House rule encourages corruption as well by enabling criminal schemes to get free land for profit instead of having to buy it for fair market value. Indeed, the new House Republican rule is exactly the kind of thing that gave our first Congress conniptions in the late 18th Century.
The last French king’s gift of a jeweled snuff box to Ambassador Benjamin Franklin, for example, was regarded as a matter of institutional corruption that threatened the very foundation of our nation, a concern smartly explored by Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham University law professor, in her 2014 eye-opening book Corruption in America.
The new House rules would also ignore the land values on federal balance sheets, which document our government’s assets and liabilities. That’s not the kind of business-like accounting that Republicans (and some Democrats) often say they insist should be the standard operating procedure.
Frequent Land Deals
Every day our federal government buys, sells, swaps, trades, gives away, and accepts gifts of land. But the value of that land is routinely considered in setting the price in sales, swaps, trades, and giveaways. Buyers and traders are supposed to pay fair market value.
Similarly, donors to our government are only supposed to take a tax deduction for fair market value. However, there are indications that donors, especially those who keep their land and only donate development rights, get much too much of a good deal.
The stark difference in how the two political parties value our government’s assets is clear from the new House land giveaway rules adopted by Republicans and the reform in a spending bill signed last month by President Joe Biden.
Such manipulation should be less easy under a provision in the Omnibus spending bill that President Biden signed. It should limit abusively inflated tax-deductible values. Excessive valuations are among the issues in Donald Trump’s tax returns going back decades.
While an improvement, the new spending policy doesn’t go far enough to reign in abuses, according to Prof. Dominic Parker, a University of Washington professor who studies land economics.
Issues about valuing our government’s land date to the earliest days of our republic. In 1793 newspaper notices disclosed a federal auction for a small parcel in the new nation’s capital, land that President George Washington fancied. Washington submitted the winning bid, but to this day, scholars disagree on the propriety of what President Washington did.
The new House rule may not have a practical effect because Democrats control the Senate. Then again, deal-making between the two chambers of Congress or the White House could make a land giveaway happen.
Policies that ignore the value of our government’s assets should concern, even infuriate, all of us.