Posted on 02/09/2016 2:32:45 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Memo to The Donald: There are ways to acquire property without using government force.
"Eminent domain is an absolute necessity," said Donald Trump during Saturday's Republican presidential debate. "Without it," he claimed, "you wouldn't have roads, you wouldn't have hospitals, you wouldn't have anything. You wouldn't have schools, you wouldn't have bridges. You need eminent domain." In fact, though, we would still have roads, bridges, schools, and hospitals.
It's a relatively new phenomenon for the government to seize property on behalf of private development projects. And yet, so very many of these projects somehow used to get done. Only one thing is certain when it comes to eminent domain: Those who have their property seized don't get paid enough for it.
Admittedly, trying to clear out all the homes from a certain area can be a seemingly insurmountable challenge. But there are free-market solutions.
Suppose that Trump wants to build a skyscraper and has to tear down the houses on an entire block. The obvious approach is to buy everyone's house, but this doesn't always work. Because of sentimental attachment, some homeowners will refuse even offers that far exceed the fair market value.
Other homeowners might act strategically, refusing early offers in the hopes of enticing much higher bids. This presents a complex problem, for a single holdout could stop the project in its tracks. Eminent domain seeks to solve this problem by forcing owners to accept a "fair market value" price. The government determines this price by seeing how much similar houses in the neighborhood have sold for. If the homeowner refuses, the government can pay this price anyway and seize the property.
RELATED: Kelo v. City of New London Ten Years Later
Until 2005, eminent domain was usually invoked only for government projects such as highways and railroads. But in that year, the U.S. Supreme Court decreed, in Kelo v. New London, that eminent domain can be enforced for private development projects. So long as local authorities believe that the project will benefit the wider community, there is no problem.
Unfortunately, the "fair market value" price is typically too low. If people only valued their homes at the market price, they would have already sold them before receiving the developer's offer. The fact that they haven't means that they value their abodes more than what is being offered on the free market. The real difficulty lies in figuring out how much more. If the government takes the property of someone who values the property more than does the person who is getting it, society is poorer.
Fortunately, there is a solution - one that businesses used for years before they gained access to eminent domain. Whether they seek to build a pipeline, a road, or a building, companies almost always consider multiple possible locations. For decades, Koch Industries, the largest privately owned company in the United States, built natural-gas and oil pipelines, just like the Keystone Pipeline, across many thousands of miles without using eminent domain.
Their approach was to offer a contract to property owners along different possible routes; the deal would go to whichever complete set of property owners signed the contract first. The owners might be offered, for example, 25 percent above the fair market value. If they value their property more than that, they don't have to sell. But the Kochs' approach discourages people from indefinitely holding out for better offers. If the homeowners wait, they risk losing this 25 percent profit. This is clearly a better alternative to forced sales at prices that, in reality, are anything but "fair."
Trump's claim that "The Keystone Pipeline, without eminent domain, it wouldn't go ten feet" is just wrong. Nor was Jeb Bush right that eminent domain is necessary for the government, which faces the same alternatives.
During the Saturday debate, Trump was asked about his attempt to seize the house of an elderly woman in Atlantic City, N.J., because he wanted a place to park limousines for his casino.
Trump claimed: "The woman ultimately didn't want to do that. I walked away." In fact, Trump didn't simply accept the woman's decision not to sell him her property. Trump neglected to mention that the Superior Court of New Jersey upheld the woman's right to keep her home.
Once again, the Atlantic City case raises the important point that there are almost always different places that a parking lot or a building or a pipeline can be built.
Trump should follow the Kochs' example. For that matter, the government itself would be well advised to use this market-based approach.
John R. Lott Jr. is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of Freedomnomics (2007).
Decades ago, when Cincinnati was rerouting I-71 along the Ohio River, there was a hot dog vendor who owned a tiny parcel under an overpass. He refused to sell his parcel which was critical to the huge project—and eventually he was awarded $2 million for it. That hot dog guy made out like a bandit—as many others do. They are not content with “market value”—but expect much more. And usually they get it. More often than not, eminent domain is a way for individuals to ransacked the public coffers, not the other way around.
Dying in the streets is irrelevant. Under the law hospitals cannot turn anyone away if they have a medical emergency.
More than half the people I see getting care in the emergency room have no insurance. It will be worse as the lower class keeps reproducing and when all the mzzies get here.
Government health insurance is a scheme to keep hospitals from going bankrupt by transferring the cost of all the free care onto us taxpayers.
You might want to read this:
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/01/Floridian/Standing_his_ground.shtml
Any in depth discussion of this topic will damage any candidate who has held executive office.
What an awful article if one wants any honesty in the press..
where is the part where bob guccione of penthouse offered her 1 million (worth 5 million today)... and then when she tried to hold out for more, tried to build a garage around the property... ie. a la bugs bunny... that caused the project to fail and so she had no light, no view but a wall, and the only outlet to the property was the street...
over a decade later, trump again offers her a million... but she turns it down, and the democrats of atlantic city wanted the blacks out of the area, and decided to do eminant domain.. Trump is not a politician and the politicians were selling her house to someone, but for 250k not a million... she fought it and got to stay
then over 10 years later the supreme court, of which trump has no ability to buy off, rules in kelo (which has NOTHING to do with this story). but by that time, Carl Ichon bought the trump property (which trump has to sue to get his name off of so that when Carl acts, trump dont get blamed).
she turns it all down, goes into an institution as a poor ederly woman, her family then decides to sell and no one wanted the property..
eventually they sold for the million
trump has no bearing on who was serving the blacks of atlantic city at the time, he was a ny real estate man. he has no ability to call for eminant domain, 15 years before kelo, and even in kelo, if the democrats of that area were not selling peoples homes to close them down, who would be able to buy?
ie. its not the big real estate man who is offered a deal for your home by your politiican who wants him to spend and they to have lots of tax money for their socialist projects... its the politicians who have decided to sell your home and push that kelo thing.
the author is very ingenous... not smart and clever, but dishonest as a rule. and is playing the people here reading for fools...
The crux of the problem:
Until 2005, eminent domain was usually invoked only for government projects such as highways and railroads. But in that year, the U.S. Supreme Court decreed, in Kelo v. New London, that eminent domain can be enforced for private development projects. So long as local authorities believe that the project will benefit the wider community, there is no problem.
key words: “local authorities”, “believe”, “wider community”
This gives local power brokers carte blanche to ram through virtually anything they can dream up.
It wil ALWAYS benefit the “wider community in their eyes if land is taken from a citizen and used to build something more expensive. Because the taxes on the more expensive building will be higher, thus allowing the politicians to distribute it to their preferred “wider community.”
It’s a hoot watching the scumbag Lott complaining about emminent domain, when Lott did nothing to curb the outrageous property theft committed by the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA.
Only the execrable USSC stopped these bureaucrat fascists in SWAANC v US and Rapanos v US.
The plaintiffs in these cases uncovered enough evidence to affect the arrest of both agency heads for sedition, followed by shutting down both unconstitutional agencies. The scumball Lott did nothing to punish these out-of-control fascist bureaucracies.
How many " deals" has TRUMP made with congress, and foreign companies? ZERO! How many would he manage to get through as President? PROBABLY very FEW if any.
..........so Trump saying in the debate Saturday night that “ he just walked away”.. is that not a LIE or a stretch of the truth? To me it is.... of course not to the TRUMPEES
Not true. He did not just move on. He tried to go to court and get it from her.
E.D.?
Why should we argue so much about it?
I’ll just take the little blue pill and relax.
And then Trump gave McConnell’s PAC another $10,000 in Nov 2014.
Did Trump donated anonymously to Dems? Money launder through LLC’s to cover his tracks?
Nothing says Principled Conservativism (TM) like anonymous money laundered campaign donations. Once again Ted Cruz is up to his eyeballs in sleazy Goldman Sachs Values.
In addition, CRuz's campaign gave McConnell's NRSC $250K....that greatly helped Midge's fight against Bevin, and Thad's fight against McDaniel.
You always seem to leave this info out of your Trump Donated to....posts, cw :(
Cruzer’s are remarkably incurious about who has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars anonymously though straw LLCs to support Cruz. Nothing principled or conservative about their candidate at this point, IMO. Nixonian indeed.
Strange happenings, eh?
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