Yard Sale Notice: Strapped Govt Must Sell Now to Raise Cash

Friday, 30 Sep 2011 12:34 PM

By Forrest Jones

Washington is getting ready to sell off state assets to raise sorely needed revenue, a yard sale of sorts favored by both Democrats and Republicans.

Items up for bid include an island, an airstrip, vehicles, roads, buildings, land — even the airwaves used to broadcast television, the New York Times reports.

Some assets might need some tender loving care, but with a little affection — and some strong chemicals — a house once belonging to the Animal Disease Center can become a loving home.

Republicans like privatization because it shrinks the government.

Democrats like it because it raises revenue painlessly.

"This is something that we can have bipartisan agreement on," says Representative Jeff Denham, R-Cal.

Close to $20 billion could come from unused airwaves, and $4 billion from ridding government entities of properties they don't need and help narrow deficits.

A congressional super committee is mulling ways to shave $1.2 trillion off U.S. deficits over 10 years.

President Barack Obama, at the same time, is calling for $1.5 trillion in new revenues that accompanies his $447 billion jobs creation plan, which relies heavily on slashing payroll taxes.

Unemployment rates remain high, and some say the country needs to get used to high joblessness, which won't come down much for another two years.

"Growth remains sluggish and insufficient to reduce the unemployment rate," Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody's Analytics, says in a note to clients, the Associated Press reports.

CEOs at big companies are more pessimistic than they were just three months ago, according to a survey by the Business Roundtable, a trade group.

About one-third of the CEOs say they plan to hire or boost spending in the next six months, down from half in June, the survey finds, the AP adds.

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