Subsidizing the corporate green giant

By Henry Lamb
web posted February 24, 2003

With the national radar focused on Iraq, North Korea,  and the
U.N., much mischief-making is occurring in Congress.  The
CARE Act of 2003 (S256), is a lengthy, complex law that
seeks, among its many objectives, to increase charitable giving.

Sections 106 and 107, if enacted, will have negative
consequences that far outweigh the perceived benefits.  These
sections authorize a 25 percent reduction in capital gains taxes to
people who sell their land or water rights to the government, or
to an environmental organization such as The Nature
Conservancy.

What’s wrong with this?  

Private property, and the use of the resources it contains, is the
foundation of a free market economy.  The real estate market
itself, is dynamic, providing jobs, and profits as property is
traded among willing buyers and sellers.  Every parcel of land
acquired by government, or organizations such as The Nature
Conservancy, diminishes the real estate market, reduces
consumer choice,  and increases the upward pressure on prices
in the remaining market.

Taxes produced by private property evaporate when it is
transferred to government, and are dramatically reduced, or
eliminated, when transferred to so-called “conservancy"
organizations.
Remaining property owners are forced to pay higher tax rates to
make up for the taxes that are forever lost when property is
taken away from the private sector.

Organizations such as The Nature Conservancy do not need
more corporate welfare, which this bill provides, by giving them
an advantage as a buyer, that is not available to other bidders.
The Nature Conservancy pays no income taxes at all, as do
other bidders in the private sector.  The Nature Conservancy’s
income is directly enhanced by grants from government, (a href=
"http://sovereignty.freedom.org/p/ngo/ngochart.shtml">$147
million between 1997 and 2001</a>), and another <a href=
"http://www.undueinfluence.com/nature_conservancy.htm">
$142 million</a> in 2000 alone, from contracts, and the sale of
land to the government.

According to a recent report in <i>Range</i> magazine, The
Nature Conservancy owns <a href="http:
//www.rangemagazine.com"> more than 90-million acres of land
around the world, about 12-million acres - a chunk the size of
Switzerland - of which is in the United States.  Along with the
World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace and two other environmental
organizations, The Nature Conservancy is listed as “executing
agency," or “collaborating organization," on more than $800
million in annual grants from the U.N.’s Global Environment
Facility.  There is no justification for these subsidies.

Governments already own more than <a href="http:
//www.nwi.org/Maps.html">40% of the total land area</a> in
America.  The total additional acreage owned by the more than
1200 “conservancy" organizations is not known.  These
organizations, in “public/private" partnerships with government,
are taking control of the foundation of our free market economy.
This objective is not expressed publicly by either government, or
by environmental organizations.  Nevertheless, the expansion of
public ownership of land is the objective, and the transformation
of our economic system is the inevitable consequence.  It is the
objective set forth by the <a href="http:
//sovereignty.freedom.org/p/land/unproprts.htm">United Nations
in 1976</a>:

<ul>
"Land...cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by
individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the
market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of
accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore
contributes to social injustice.... The provision of decent
dwellings and healthy conditions for the people can only be
achieved if land is used in the interests of society as a whole.
Public control of land use is therefore indispensable...."
</ul>

The CARE Act of 2003 subsidizes these giant green
corporations in order to expedite the removal of land from
private individuals, and the “inefficiencies of the market."  Since
socialism is defined to be “public ownership of the sources of
production," every sale of land to the government, or to an
environmental organization acting as a surrogate government
partner, moves the nations closer to a socialist economy.

The government needs no more land.  In fact, government should
begin immediately to return its land inventory to the private
sector.  Environmental organizations need no more corporate
welfare in the form of grants, or special subsidies.  In fact, the
land owned by these organizations should be taxed at the same
rate comparable private land is taxed.
 
Not all of the CARE Act of 2003 is bad.  Sections 106 and 107
certainly are.  These sections should be removed.  Every other
law that gives welfare subsidies to these green corporate giants,
should be repealed.

Terms such as open space, conservation, preservation,
viewsheds, and the like, may sound
warm and fuzzy.  The loss of free markets, private property, and
individual freedom they require, however, is cold and brutal.

Henry Lamb is the executive vice president of the Environmental
Conservation Organization, and chairman of Sovereignty
International.

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