Taking is taking, if the owner is forced to give up the property. And many people get a pittance compared to what the land is worth after being developed. If eminent domain were fair, the owner would get some profit sharing from the development, or be allowed to keep title to the land.
This is one of the things that I despise about Trump. Kelo was a bad decision, and is bad law.
If the GOP-e’s Club for Growth and David McIntosh don’t like the `public takings’ clause, they should work to get the 5th amendment repealed.
Instead they’ll mau mau Trump, as instructed.
I love this guy. Is he ever wrong?
I was watching when he said it ,I cringed hoping people would not dump on him over it.
Hey at least he is honest enough to say what he thinks.
A number of things that make me cringe now, but I think he could be great still.
He could be great still as long as he stands by his promise to appoint Conservative judges
Right now eminent domain for private use is about 99th on my list of 100 most important issues. We’re on the brink of very interesting times, and there are more important things to worry about.
Yeah, let's continue to drive up and down those muddy county roads with no railings.
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of power; but they cannot justify it, even if we were sure that they existed. It is hardly too strong to say, that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intention, real or pretended.” --- Daniel Webster
We need roads and such and that comes from eminent domain.
I wonder, though, how Donald would feel if government came along and took over ownership of patents or companies for the same purpose. Imagine if the government saw any investment slated to take off wildly, swoop in to expropriate it, giving only today’s value for it. Would Donald be similarly okay?
I’m beginning to see ‘shades of obama’. Promise anything, backtrack on everything.
‘homeowners can be paid “four, five, six, ten times” their property’s value.’
They can be, but they’re usually not - and who the f*** are YOU to say they have to move to accommodate your priorities.
Eminent Domain CAN be a great thing. The problem is it’s often abused by elected officials in bed with developers. And like him or not Trump is one such developer. A person’s property is worth a lot more than its monetary value to many. I have relatives in the south that had their waterfront property taken for no other reason then to build something that brought in more tax dollars.(Condos!) Of course what they were paid didn’t allow them to find a place on the water anywhere else.That’s just not fair and not what Eminent Domain was intended for. And when the property has been in your family for generations and you’re keeping up with it. Absurd. As a child I used to ask my dad why there were so many barns falling into disrepair on a stretch of highway near our house. He told me that when the highway system came through in the 50’s, the logical place to put it was owned by a wealthy guy who got the government off his back. Instead, even though it took longer to traverse the highway to reach the major cities along the route, they took a farm that was in a family for generations. The 101 year old patriarch of the family died two days after they took the families property. How awful.
Oh wait, it's not even a little bit of a shock to anybody who's paid any attention to him at all over the last thirty years.
In general I've liked what Trump has to say, but I disagree with him here. Even apart from the whole "taking property" part, I highly doubt people really get 4,5,10x the value of their property.
Eminent Domain, like Government, is Evil... but a necessary Evil... and a wise people will limit both as much as possible.
Doesn’t Trump have this wrong?
Emminent domain means that the city grabs the land for free. There is no compensation to the homeowner.
In my neck of the woods, a landowner wanted a refund of the Real Estate taxes she had paid for twenty years. The town lawyer decided that the taxes she had paid were “donations”!!! and so the town paid her $0.00 for her land. That land is now a park...which no one uses.
Meanwhile the State wants to take my driveway and make it a public road. My driveway is three feet from my bedroom. The compensation is minimal.
Emminent domain is theft.
It is pretty much the same thing as when some South American dictator nationalizes an oil company, pays what they consider to be a fair price and then turns the industry over to their political favorites. Trump knows that and I'm not sure he's going to be able to sell this one.
Yes it is, and it is constitutional. Only requirement is the owner be fairly compensated.