Posted on 12/15/2012 10:38:30 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Steven Mufson is a Washington Post reporter covering energy and other financial news. He has enjoyed visiting Alaska without needing his passport.
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The prospect of once again hitting the federal debt ceiling has provoked the ritual round of hand-wringing about the intractable nature of this $16 trillion conundrum. But there is a simple, elegant option that involves no tax increases, no spending cuts and just a bit of imagination.
Sell Alaska.
hat’s right. Put the entire state — from Juneau to Deadhorse, from the Bering Strait to the Beaufort Sea — on the auction block.
Absurd? No more absurd than the spectacle taking place right now as we skid closer to the “fiscal cliff.”
Selling real estate at top dollar is all about timing, and now’s a great time to unload the Klondike state. The federal government, which owns 69 percent of Alaska, could cash in on the vast, resource-rich state at a time when oil prices are high and wild salmon is flying off the shelves at Whole Foods. Selling Alaska could fetch at least $2.5 trillion and maybe twice that amount, enough to lop off a huge chunk of the national debt and perhaps as much money as President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner hope to save or raise over the next decade.
The return on investment would look great, too. Secretary of State William H. Seward — you might know him as the handsome fellow played by David Strathairn in the new Steven Spielberg movie, “Lincoln” — bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 for $7.2 million, drawing ridicule. One New York newspaper that year called Alaska a “sucked orange,” saying Russia had already drained all the value out of it.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“now’s a great time to unload the Klondike state.”
What a putz writer. The Klondike is and area in NW Canada, not Alaska.
:-) We need another Lee Attwater!
LLS
To solve our problems, let’s sell Washington DC.
But who would buy it???
Better idea is just to put most of the federal land holdings up for sale. Here in Southern California, there are lots of million dollar per house neighborhoods that abut federally-owned “forest” lands where there’s no development whatsoever, not even a tourist hotel. It’s not even actual forest with trees, for the most part. Just make some hard choices about the best parts that really need to be preserved as parkland, and sell the rest to real estate developers. The land is incredibly valuable and does no one any good staying off the market.
Typical leftist.
Government owns 60% so trample the property rights of the other 49%
The chicoms would buy it... just for grins... a head mount for their trophy room.
LLS
No, no, and no.
The Chicoms will become a (major) threat, having Alaska would allow them to move over several hundred million people and endanger America and Canada.
No.
While we’re at it, bring back American jobs.
It was a joke. Yes! Bring back American Jobs... reduce taxes and regulations on business and weaken the communist labor unions.
LLS
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