Idaho has hopes for land sale to Forest Service Idaho is hoping the proposed sale of three state-owned backcountry ranches to the U.S. Forest Service will kickstart a $50 million “Land Legacy Trust” announced by Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter last year, aimed at protecting ranches, timberland and wildlife habitat. Of 30 surplus properties the Idaho Department of Fish and Game has identified, the ranches are the first to make a list of those eligible in 2009 for money from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, created in 1965 to use some royalties from offshore oil and gas leases for conservation. Still, state and federal officials say securing the entire $14 million requested by the Forest Service to buy the three ranches deep in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness will be a tough sell, due to intense national competition among projects and because Congress has limited payouts from the Land and Water Conservation Fund...Idaho acquired the Cameron Ranch, the Marble Creek Ranch and the Cougar Ranch as part of efforts starting in 1938 to bolster elk and mule deer habitat for hunters. It now wants to sell these wilderness inholdings because their locations would make them easier for the Forest Service to manage...Fish and Game is also considering working with groups such as the Trust for Public Lands and The Nature Conservancy to find alternative ways to transfer surplus state parcels to federal control...The Forest Service, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management or other government agencies, rather than wealthy individuals, are targeted as buyers, the agency has said.

Otter was a Republican congressman with a laudable conservative record. Read the article though, and you will see that Otter, as a Republican Governor in a western state, is promoting the following:

1.Increased congressional congressional funding to the Land & Water Conservation Fund, so that the state can
2.Sell more land to the feds and
3.Acquire more property interests in private land

By transferring assets to the feds and acquiring assets from the private sector, we will have a larger public estate and a diminished private estate.

Why did I register as a Republican way back in 1973? I seen to remember something about private property and limited government.

It would appear the only difference between the R's & D's on these issues is the extent to which it is done, not whether it should be done at all.