By Glen Eric Larson
During the Homestead Act, people were able to get property for free or in some cases like in the Oklahoma Land Rush Acts, they were able to compete for land in races. Imagine if people could compete for government lands, apartments, homes, cars, boats, mineral assets such as oil shale and other government assets instead of having to put up money in an auction.
This stimulus plan brought many impoverished people into the west to settle and farm it and resulted in a huge demand for industrial development to supply it. The Homestead Act is credited with fueling America’s industrial revolution. The federal and state governments own many lands and resources that could benefit average people today. Even though the Homestead Act was eliminated by Jimmy Carter, the federal and state governments still own vast tracts of land and other resources that could still be settled and developed by people. Such settlement could create a huge demand for all kinds of products and services. Russia has recently revisited the homestead act that America pioneered and is developing it’s eastern region with this program.
The Federal government owns many homes that no one lives in that could be fixed up and sold. The development of these homes could stimulate the economies of the towns where the homes reside. The Federal government also owns apartments that could be awarded to their tenants.
There are also billions of dollars of mineral assets such as oil shale that could allow many people who live on welfare to be independent of government. Many of these natural resources reside on federal lands and are untapped. If average people were awarded these mining claims, they would be amazingly wealthy.
The government also owns Timber assets and many other assets such as bridges, freeways and utilities.
How would the government distribute such assets? The government often sells and auctions off assets to wealthy individuals and corporations but could instead allow ordinary people to be given assets and shares of assets which would allow them to be independent of government and free up the government from having to pay people week after week welfare and food stamps. Imagine if instead of an auction based system where government property is distributed, it was changed to a competition based system like the Oklahoma Land rush act. During the Oklahoma Land Rush, people were allowed to race for government property instead of putting up money. This allowed people who didn’t have much money to be able to own land. Government owns millions of properties including apartments, homes, cars, boats and vast tracts of lands along with many other properties.
The Federal government could stage large land rushes like the Oklahoma Land Rush only with bicycles or motorcycles.
The Federal and State governments could even have large foot races.
Vanoss Elementary School children make a dash for plots of property during an Oklahoma Land Run reenactment at the school Tuesday, April 22, 2014. Order reprints of this image at theadanews.smugmug.com. (Photo by Richard R. Barron)
