and absentee landowners? Homestead Act allowed individuals to settle and improve a fixed amount of land; once they had claimed and improved it for a pithy fee they could own it. That clearly went against free market principals and distorted the market. The government could have raised the same amount of money if not more by selling unrestricted amounts to banks and wealthy absentee landowners on a price set by the market, not the government. And you could have done away with that socialist, "farmers owning their own land" bs because that land still could have been developed and farmed by sharecroppers. The Ottoman Empire used this system; its residents enjoyed the highest standards of living in the world as a result.*
And lastly; how did the federal government come into owning that land in the first place? It BOUGHT it from France or Mexico(plus a war with Mexico to come to a tender price) with TAXPAYER dollars! The government was basically handing out land to squatters with other peoples money! How unfair! Don't you think?
* denotes BS.
they gave land paid for in taxpayer dollars to the LESS productive members of society!
And lastly; how did the federal government come into owning that land in the first place? It BOUGHT it from France or Mexico(plus a war with Mexico to come to a tender price) with TAXPAYER dollars! The government was basically handing out land to squatters with other peoples money! How unfair! Don't you think?
* denotes BS.
they gave land paid for in taxpayer dollars to the LESS productive members of society!