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Deceptive accounting and subsidies. The industries that profit from our publicly owned lands are heavily subsidized by
tax dollars. And they enjoy indirect benefits from using public lands. Welfare ranchers are subsidized by Wildlife Services
and other federal agencies that help them for free. Public lands mining operations pay just $5 per acre for millions in
assets, and leave the expensive mess behind for the government to clean up - yet another indirect subsidy. Who pays for
these subsidized costs? We the taxpayers. The bureaucrats entrusted to manage our public lands also profit from the destruction:
Their budgets increase when the land is razed, not when it's preserved.
In a truly free market, the industries that trash public lands would quickly go bankrupt. Without government handouts,
their "profits" would tumble. An accurate and fully-costed accounting of the assets in our pristine forests, rivers and
streams would make preservation, not destruction, the most profitable choice for managing America's public lands.
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