The federal government owns a little more than one-fourth of the total land area of the United States.

That’s right. According to multiple sources (non-governmental), the FedGov owns about 640 million acres of the 2 billion acres that makes us the landmass of the 50 States and the various territories. Actually, that is 28%. That converts to a nice round ONE MILLION SQUARE MILES. (By the way, this does not include highways, streets, or most airports and seaports: those are owned by local and state governments.)

Various FedGov agencies control most of that: the Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service (both forests and grasslands), the National Park Service, and the US Fish & Wildlife Service. But hundreds of other FedGov agencies control large chunks of land. Among them? The Tennessee Valley Authority, General Services Administration, US Postal Service (yeah, right – they “aren’t” a government agency), Bureau of Reclamation, Federal Reserve (ditto on “aren’t”), and of course the Department of Defense (a “tiny” 27 million acres, including US Corps of Engineers land).

And this doesn’t even include land “under trust” of the FedGov. Mostly AmerInd tribal lands (and land theoretically in private hand) and Alaska Native Corporations. And it does not include millions of acres in State lands. Nor does it include the land under the sea in the zone between the State’s 3-mile-limits and the 200-mile limit of the “Exclusive Economic Zone” established by international law!

Indeed, in some States – theoretically sovereign nations in a union with 49 other States which have an agent or servant called the FedGov – the FedGov owns and controls most land. Nevada? More than 80% of Nevada’s land is under FedGov control. Supposedly, Nevada is equal in status and power to States like Iowa and Connecticut, which have only 0.3% FedGov land.

Can this be justified in 2025? Really, could it ever be justified in a jurisdiction which supposedly and constutitionally supports liberty? The time is long overdue to consider whether that is the best economic arrangement. And reconsideration is especially needed at a time of urgent fiscal problems.

(An aside: If Canada’s 10 provinces and 3 territories were annexed as US States and territories, the FedGov would suddenly gain millions of square miles of land. In Canada, with 2.25 billion acres, only 11% is privately owned. The provinces own 48% and the government in Ottawa owns 41%.)

Let us pretend that all the federal land averaged a mere $1,000 per acre in value. (It is almost certainly far greater than that. The FedGov just paid $100 million for a mere 640 acres of State land in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.) It may be a shock to find that is only $640 billion dollars that could be applied to pay off the federal debt of over $30 trillion. Even if the average value was 10 times that? It is less than 1/5 that debt.

And frankly, it is an ironclad certainty that none of that would actually be used by Congress to pay down the debt. Like your Cousin Jonnie, the perpetually in-debt and hard-boozing guy, whom you gave enough money to pay off his debt? He’d spend it on booze, not paying people back. Or pay off the debts and still keep partying and going into debt again.

The evils of government ownership of land and buildings are many. But the greater evil is the money that the FedGov borrows, collects in taxes, and spends like a dozen drunk Cousin Jonnies – every second of every day.

The impact on people – on the economy, on the free market, and much more – is massive. Yes, there are no doubt some advantages to all this. Even more if we pretend that the FedGov (and State and local governments) were competent and responsible. But they are definitely NOT.

Bluntly, transferring FedGov land to States or tribes or local government would not really help much, if at all.

But for now, let us again ask the original question: Can the FedGOV owning 28% of the total land mass of the Fifty States and territories be justified in 2025? Or at all?