JAMES P. PINKERTON: Trump’s ‘Make America Rich Again’ Agenda Could Be A Boon For Just Half The States

There is so much noise in this presidential campaign that it takes effort to notice a signal. That is, a policy initiative that could, as former President Donald Trump said on September 24, “make America rich again.”

Trump called for “a new American industrialism,” entailing federal land being used for new factories. “We will set up special zones of federal land with ultra-low taxes and regulations for American producers,” Trump said. “These will be ideal spots for relocating entire industries that we’ve taken in from other countries.”

Territorial abundance as a key to wealth creation is embedded in the American dream. Pilgrims and pioneers went west, questing for homesteads, property and profits, and the federal government helped, buying or conquering Louisiana, Florida, California, Alaska and Hawaii.

This was America’s manifest destiny: God gave us this land on which to flourish. As late as 1963, President John F. Kennedy declared, as he dedicated a dam in Heber Springs, Arkansas, that it was “wasteful” not to develop natural resources.

Yet, during the 1970s, the federal government went both green and elitist, shifting from go-go developmentalism to long-distance imperialism. No longer would the feds be developing; they would be freezing development, thereby pleasing environmental lobbyists and mostly Democratic donors.

Today, the federal government owns about 27% of the land in the U.S. — more than 1 million square miles. There is no particular logic to this federal ownership, which varies widely by state