Tass,I dont think youre ideas are silly, infact my thinking so along the same lines.

440ex026, good to see your input, and dont stay away so long, next time.

Georged, ...you always seem to nail the real issue, i wish i could state my point as well as you do.

 

This entire scenario of outright selling of public lands, for whatever purpose, is simply a bad call. One doesn't sell assets to pay expenses, period. If we're in a position where we can't fund rural schools but can rationalize spending $8-billion/mo on the Iraq folly, we've mentally gone off the cliff with the other dodo birds.

I condone trading public land for private land, that expands public ownership of migratory bird routes, marsh land and estuaries which produce pleasure for the public and preserves some of our natural resources for future generations. Selling it makes me feel like we're selling the family jewels out of the trunk of a car to educate our children while our tax money destroys other countries. A pretty sleazy legacy by any standard.

 

How about this ,fiscal responsibilities of some of the scool systems in MN are outrageous like Minneapolis afew years ago they lost track of several MILLION dollars yes I said Million dollars . and they still don't know where it went .they also have one of the highest cost / student and one of the lowest GPAs .
Lets start by haveing a Merrit based pay system and lose half of the Administrators ,.
Especialy when you can see private Schools way out performing the public ones ,at least here .

minneapolis schools around $12,000/student
private schools around $6000-$7000/student

 

I don't like the idea of selling public land. The more the better as far as I'm concerned. It sounds like a problen was caused by the environmentalists who shut down the logging industry. At this point, you can't just not provide schools for kids, and the money fomerly provided by logging companies must now come from somewhere else.

 

I live in an area where logging was formerly the primary industry. The people I know who were and are heavily involved in timber products at principal/manager levels don't blame environmentalists for the decline of that industry. We now import 32% of our forest products not due to due a shortage of timber, but because of high US labor and benefit costs, the proliferation of synthetics in residential construction and virtually all commercial structures by code now requiring steel support beams and wall framing. Almost all specialty wood, such as finished hardwood flooring, is now imported, again due to uncompetitive US product costs. Any logger around here can tell you all the easy, operationally cheap stuff was taken long, long ago.

As to furnishing funds for rural schools, in my state the federal government signed agreements on a county by county basis to support rural schools, health care and and other rural social services in sparsely populated counties without adequate property tax bases to provide those services, using funds from federal revenue sharing. The feds are now serving notice to those counties that agreement will be revoked due to decreased revenue sharing, that tax money being directed to foreign policy costs instead of educating children.

If selling public land is now required to school rural children, then why are we dumping $8-billion monthly into a foreign quagmire? Common sense says our children's education should come before anything else. Any nation's future strength is in its youth. If it doesn't, what's the point of having children or paying taxes?

 

I have relatives formerly in the logging industry and they tell me the spotted owl thing really hurt. You didn't mention that excessive environmental regulations also add to costs that are making our logging industry less competitive.

 

georged and deeplaker both make good points and ask good questions...............The major issue is the poor management at extremely high costs....How many angels can dance on the head of a pin????? Spotted owl, Pine martin, Lynx???????????????? Preserve habitat for the moose???????????? The USDA/USFS motto is "caring for the land, serving the people". Nope, ain't happenin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Most of the expertise is gone from the Northwest forest service regions. They can only play with trails, shut down roads, impose restrictions so their enforcement officers have a job. Yup............enforcement officers for the USFS.............You should see their budget for firearms/ammunition/vehicles/training and so on. If timber sales were put up there would not be enough folks to mark the harvest trees correctly, there would not be enough folks to survey any needed roads or designate roads to use, there would be no adequate timbersale managers..................as a matter of fact there would not be enough milling capacity to handle the timber made available. Once the infastructure is gone it simply cannot happen as it should. Soon the USFS will begin enforcing the "if its not marked open.........its closed" policy. That way they can sit on their butts, collect their checks, wait for the wonderful retirement and still say they are doing something for the public. The Salmon issues have been more of an impact than the owl. In the name of the Salmon the USFS/environmentalists/ODF&W and other state agencies can justify almost any lie or guess they choose to come up with. Closing of roads? elimination of trails? shutdown of hunting? forcing more and more folks into less and less area? elimination of industry and recreation? The sale of the public land I fear is only a matter of time..........How else can the parasites support themselves and their retirement?
I spent yesterday in an area known as Pelican Creek. Site of some of the original Oregon Trail, a history of railroad logging, an area of hunting and recreation, a truly beautiful and basically now unused public land except for idiots like me and a few snow machine addicts..........With the closing of roads on the rest of the Wallowa Whitman National forest, the elimination of campgrounds and other access more and more folks need to use the area. Soon we will hear the old addage "You are loving it to death".. Posting of private land in the 5 points creek area, elimination of forest service roads throughout the forest. Obliteration of roads within the area and new access rules will insure that in a short period of time that I and my family become the bad guys and the outlaws............As a matter of fact, I guess we are now...................The sale of the pubic assets is the only way the parsites can support themselves..........Tass.

 

As a business plan to squeeze more money for foreign policy and expansion of certain government entities, recent reductions in budgets and consequently personnel for management of public lands are certainly well-contrived. Closures and restrictions due to a lack of management ability will motivate the ever-expanding general public and special interests to demand access to 'unused' public lands for pleasure and economic gain. To facilitate those demands, government will authorize sale of more and more public lands, but the funds won't be directed towards management of the remaining assets, they'll go to black holes of spending that have no benefit to the general public and decreased public access to public lands. We're seeing the tip of the iceberg with initial sale of public land, with proceeds supposedly going to fund emotional issues like rural education because those funds have been redirected to foreign policy expenses.

Environmental preservation versus commerce (jobs) is far too complicated to point fingers at either side on specific topics. What a lot of it boils down to is emotion, not reason. Certain entities want water which requires dams. Dams raise water temperatures which subject spawning salmon to parasitic circumstances that decimate the salmon. To retain dams (the largest political lobby supports dams), means limiting salmon fishing to replenish brood stock, creating a financial hardship on commercial and recreational fisherman. Who's right? Do we remove the dams to satisfy fishermen, leave dams in place without restricting fishing and eventual demise of natural salmon and the fishing industry but satisfying that special interest group or just sell the land and **** away the money on expenses? The timber issue is every bit as complicated and emotionally charged. Without expounding on that one, both issues are a clash of perceived immediate and future desires and needs, which rational thinking determines as requiring compromise for a reasonable solution. A government desperate for money to spend elsewhere and a public desperate for jobs and recreational access of public land is not going to provide a reasonable solution.

 

:^( yup................................Tass

 

I've read where groups like the Nature Conservancy have bought hundreds of thousands of acres of private land and turned it into public property. I think that's great. I wonder how it all balances with the amounts of public land being sold to pivate interests. I suspect that the concern Georged raised in starting this thread may not be as big as it appears. It's probably just another case of the news media telling just enough of the whole story to put a leftist spin on the issue.