The GOP plan has always been to sell the vast majority of the land to the states because in the words of officials in places like Wyoming, Utah and Idaho, it's worthless to locals as federally managed lands, and the states will sell the rights to the resources (timber/gas oil production/livestock grazing) or the land itself for revenue (that lasts a few years so it's only a temporary fix.) The end game is something like Texas where most land with any water supply is privately owned, where there are federal parks, state parks and private parks (mostly for hunting). It's a very short term state tax solution that trades open space for temporary tax revenue. They would leave the unprofitable bits of national parks to the federal government.

https://www.npr.org/2024/10/03/nx-s1-5119930/utahs-controver...

This was part of Project 2025, as well, so we knew this going into the election but that was a lot of stuff.

It's tricky. The original agreement on national forests was that the local community would lose out on having a property tax base but that the forests would create jobs/income in other ways. Then slowly the feds cut out all those income streams leaving communities hurting. We used to get money from a federal fund to pay for schools to make up for the lost property tax revenue but we no longer do.

I don't want the forests sold, hate Project 2025 and think the current admin is doing horrible, but there has been a lot bad faith on both side to get everyone so divided, with lots of promises/commitments/agreements just flat out broken by the left without a care to the impact on actual lives. My town had three mills, today it has none. Our lake management has been switched to actively destructive to the local community (changing lake levels in ways that destroy docks/marinas/prevent boat access and impact local fish spawning) in order to send water downstream for federal pet projects even though the Feds promised it would be managed like a natural lake when they put the dam in. Our lake use to be crystal clean and you could see down 20-30 feet. Now because it's more stagnant from the damn and has time to warm up you can't see down 3.

The states mentioned already have state land for state benefit, and they are managed as a resource and don't provide the type of nature that the national forests do with hunting, wheeling, camping recreation. They are heavily logged. They used to lease the land but now just sell it off and get one payday.

Again I hate project 2025 but the left tore up Federal agreements with local communities like Trump is doing now and no one cared because it only ruined loggers/miners/logging truckers/mill workers' lives and 'was for a good reason' (created a logging ban for all practical purposes) or destroyed lakes they were willing to sacrifice for their pet projects lower down the watershed.

> What’s the plan here?

There's only ever been one plan and it hasn't changed:

1) cut funding to a public service

2) said service goes to shit because it lacks support

3) use chaos as an excuse to privatize it so someone makes a buck

then move on to the next service

That's the plan for every other federal service. For public land in particular there's an extra fun bonus step of selling the land to be exploited fully. Look at the Secretary of Interior's record in North Dakota.

It "worked" for the UK, now the cost of water keeps raising and the level of service keeps going down.

who needs public lands in the first place?

https://time.com/7261219/patagonia-ceo-trump-shouldnt-sell-p...

I'm sure they'll be repurposed into something profitable. Perhaps by leasing out mineral rights, or by carving out some of the choicest spots as highest-end residential real estate.

No longer will America's resources be allowed to languish now that the government is finally running like a business. We can finally focus on what really matters: ROI.

Sarcasm, or not, I hate your correct assessment in so many ugly, broken people's perspectives.

It's tricky.

On the one hand, everybody seems to agree that countries should reduce their debt.

On the other hand, everybody seems to complain as soon as costs are cut.

It's not tricky at all. When you're the richest country in the world and you have a lower than average tax rate, there is one very simple trick that gets rid of the debt problem.

But that is not what the US voted for, is it?

IIRC Trump's campaign promised lower taxes, not higher taxes.

He's raising taxes on most people. He didn't talk much about taxes. He campaigned on immigration and trans issues, mostly.

No one could have seen this coming. Why didn't anybody warn US voters at all!

What if I told you there is an amazing way to eliminate the national deficit, begin paying off our debts and reduce the taxes on the vast majority of people in this country without cutting costs indiscriminately...

I, and many others, don’t agree that we need to reduce the debt.

We need to ensure it grows a bit more slowly then gdp. On average, slower in boom years, faster in recession.

> everybody seems to agree that countries should reduce their debt

The GOP’s budget proposes $2 trillion in new deficits over the next 10 years. Nobody is reducing debt. Ironically, the only deficit move to date from the Trump administration has been tax increases in the form of tariffs.

I think the complaints are more to do with how it's being done.

Yeah real tricky, cut the budget of a department that is already underfunded that protects our public lands and does honest work serving the public, while cutting taxes on corporations and the ultra rich. Only a bootlicker would find anything tricky about this.

The US budget deficit is driven by entitlements and the Trump tax cuts . It's very easy to balance the budget with small reforms to Social security and Medicaid and raising some revenue.

No, a lot of people have been tricked into thinking austerity is the only way to reduce their country's debt.

All the while billionaires gorge themselves on public money and contribute ever less to society.

It's not tricky, because costs are _not_ being cut -- the next budget will _add_ at least $2T to the deficit.

We're cutting the NPS, USFS and BLM so that we can increase the defense budget by $150B (with a B) and send troops to the Mexican border.

Not a good trade-off at all.

> What's the plan here?

The plan is to sell off the Crown Jewels to fund Trump's sovereign wealth fund.

https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trump-quietly-plans...