A feel-good headline from the Rocky Mountain News: "Forest land sale sputters."
The first line isn't bad either.
There's little support for a Bush administration plan to sell 300,000 acres of Forest Service land, federal officials said Wednesday as they extended the public comment period.
The comment period would have expired today, but now we've got until April 30.
Meanwhile, two Democratic western Senators have a solution for Bush's de-funding of rural schools, which, as you may recall, has been the administration's pseudo-rationale for proposing the land sale in the first place.
U.S. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) is introducing legislation today that will fund the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act without selling public lands. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is cosponsoring the measure.
The bill will raise $2.6 billion over the next ten years for the rural schools program, commonly known as the county payments law, by closing a tax loophole that allows some government contractors to avoid their tax obligations.
...
The legislation would provide a steady revenue stream for the county payments law by closing a tax loophole in Federal contracts. Under current law, the Federal government does not withhold taxes owed from government contractors that provide goods and services to the Federal government. As a result, some contractors don’t comply with Federal tax law.
The Baucus proposal will help close the annual "tax gap" by withholding taxes from payments by the Federal government for goods and services delivered by public contractors at a rate of three percent of the payment amount.
While Senators Baucus and Wyden show some leadership, the Bushies, in the person of senior Ag Department official Mark Rey, show none. One of Rey's favorite lines is that there are no alternatives to funding rural schools other than selling off our national heritage, little by little. Just yesterday, he said, ”We're open to alternatives, but nary another alternative has emerged.”
What will his tune be tomorrow?
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