OPINION/COMMENTARY

A Bill To Help The Little Guy Becomes A Bonanza For The Big Boys

...Large land trusts and their influential allies in Washington's political establishment have pushed for the inclusion of a significant tax break in their favor when privately owned land is being sold. The House version — H.R. 7 — the Charitable Giving Act — does not include the special break, but the Senate version — S. 476 — the CARE Act of 2003 — does.

If the Senate version is included in the bill that will be sent to President Bush's desk, a capital gains tax reduction of 25% will be provided to sellers of land or water rights only if they sell to large land trusts or government agencies.

Therefore, without this tax break, the seller of a parcel of land valued at $500,000 would put his land on the market and receive offers for land at that price. If this provision takes effect, the average buyer would end up paying $500,000 and the property owner selling the land would have to pay taxes on the transaction. With the provision, however, he receives a 25% capital gains tax reduction on the $500,000 transaction provided that he sells to a land trust or government agency even though they do not perform charitable acts.

Even if he wants to sell to the local church or just to a friend, if the Land Trust Tax Favoritism proposal is passed, the deck will be stacked in favor of selling to the Big Land Trust or the agencies of the Federal government.

When the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation examined the impact of the land trust provision in its May 12th analysis of the CARE bill, its analysis determined that the provision would reduce revenue for the federal government by hundreds of millions of dollars over a ten year period.

This provision draws opposition from Members of Congress in Western states given that the Federal government already owns 36% of the land and this can only lead to taking more land off the property tax rolls. The result of this provision, should it be enacted, is likely to lead to further hikes in property taxes to compensate for the resulting attrition of taxable land or reductions in public services. As the letter signed by the Members of Congress makes clear the impact of this provision may very well be felt throughout our agricultural sector: "The Senate provision places a premium on selling farms and ranches to non-farm organizations, thereby discouraging our young people from entering into agriculture and reducing competition for land. With reduced competition for property, the landowner loses."

But the opponents of the Senate provision also find fault with it for cutting the deck in favor of a large land trust like the Nature Conservancy with its $3.2 billion in assets and an annual budget of $740 million. Dealt out of the deal are the very faith-based institutions that are supposed to be helped by the faith-based initiative — churches, orphanages, and religious schools...

Parsing the Propaganda of the Junk Scientists

Every 10 years, "scientist" Paul Ehrlich writes a book predicting that in the next 10 years there will not be enough food to feed a burgeoning population. Mass starvation will follow and the world will revert to savagery. Every 10 years, his prior doomsaying is forgotten and the media and its pundits give his latest prediction space and serious consideration.

This is junk science at its most ridiculous and on a par with fright-wig stories about this food or that product. Take the campaign against DDT, which led Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency to ban a great scientific advance. DDT had about eliminated one of the great scourges of nature: malaria and the anopheles mosquito, carrier of the disease. Whole regions of the world had been the victims of malaria. In India, for example, one of its most-fertile regions produced nothing because its people were struck down year after year by the dread disease...