Hey public budget nerds. Anyone ever read The Public Wealth of Nations? I did and walked away intrigued. The premise is that the U.S. (or, closer to home, CA) is sitting on several trillion in un-used/under-used assets that could take our budget from deficit to surplus w/no taxes

I haven't kicked the tires on the theory fully, but the idea that 1) the government owns a lot of valuable stuff and 2) manages it incompetently, seemed intuitive enough.

I first started thinking about this seriously when I was doing the book, after I followed a development in which a developer bought land from the state, got it rezoned by the city, then used the surplus to fund supportive housing.

It just got me thinking that there had to be a more creative way for states/cities to use their own land to build housing (there have been some efforts here but none that seemed revolutionary).

But now that we are heading into an epic budget hole that will persist for years and be compounded by decades of unfunded obligations that voters have been consistently lied to about, it seems like it's time to think beyond whatever rinky dink tax programs will be proposed.

As I said in another reply, I am decidedly not talking about selling or privatizing assets. I guess the model I'm thinking is creating some sort of independent but publicly owned corporation that would be run professionally like an endowment.