by the way, the federal government owns a third of the acreage in the country. A third, now factor in all the land the states own and the cities and counties, the only thing the government owns more of is your paycheck.

Pointing to that and saying it is wrong is not a liberal idea, HB. Anyone can see that, why can't you?

here's the stats on what the federal government owns in the states as a percentage of the states, the top 12

Nevada: 91.9%
Alaska 66.7%
Utah 66.5%
Idaho 66.4%
Wyoming 50.6%
Arizona 50.2%
Oregon 49.7%
California 46.9%
Colorado 34.9%
New Mexico: 34.1%
Montana: 31.3%
Washington: 31.0%

16.9 million Americans owe their jobs to the federal government (1999 stats, stats since the Homeland Security are not as clear, but actually more people work for the feds or owe their jobs to the feds now than then)

Federal full-time equivalent civilian employees: 1.9 million
Federal uniformed military personnel: 1.5 million
U.S. postal workers: 0.85 million
Federal grant-created jobs: 2.4 million
State and local mandate-created jobs: 4.7 million
Federal contract-created jobs: 5.6 million

TOTAL: 16.9 million

divide that by the amount of federal lands and they all got their 40 acres now if they'd just get a damn mule and take care of their land.

I know they can't, you know they can't so the answer lies within the private market, if they'd only just get out of the way and let the people manage OUR lands.