There goes the neighborhood.
Harry Reid (AP photo)
House-Senate negotiators Monday night filed a $1.1 trillion federal spending bill. For many counties in the West it contains a major funding gap, according to Politico, no PILT — Payment in Lieu of Taxes, which since 1976 has been doled out to counties with large swaths of untaxed federal land. In Nevada, the money can amount to as much as 10 percent of a county’s total annual budget.
Apparently, PILT was traded away to make room for firefighting funds in the Interior Department and Forest Service, which result primarily from policies established by the Interior Department.
In 2013, Nevada got $23 million in PILT payments for its 56 million acres of federal land.
When those checks were cut, Harry Reid, Nevada’s senior senator and the powerful majority leader of the Senate, boasted:
“PILT payments have always been crucial for Nevada counties and local governments to provide essential services like education, emergency services, law enforcement, infrastructure and healthcare. At a time when unemployment continues to hurt our state’s economic growth, I am pleased this funding will help save and create so many jobs in these areas and I will continue to work to ensure our rural counties have access to these important funds.”
He also pointed out that the Interior Department collects about $14 billion in revenue annually from commercial activities on federal lands, such as oil and gas leasing, livestock grazing and timber harvesting. What he did not say was that the grand total of PILT dollars doled out nationwide was $400 million. That’s $35 sent to Washington for every $1 sent back as PILT.
Also, what the most powerful man in the Senate also did not say is that Nevada gets a paltry 41 cents per acre while neighboring states get double and triple that amount. Nor did he point out that PILT amounts to only $8.50 per Nevadan, less than Montana’s $26.37, less than Idaho’s $16.50 or Utah’s $12.40.
Parity has been reached. All the states, under the budget deal, will get the same — none.
2013 PILT funding dry up in 2014 under budget deal reached Monday night.
4TH ST8 
Harry Reid, supposedly the most powerful man in the Senate doesn’t do the bidding of the citizens of Nevada, he does the bidding of Obama and Company, basically he goes along to appear relevant. Actually the entire Congress follows along to appear relevant, makes me wonder how many of them had any idea they would be marginalized to irrelevancy in less than five years. What will they do, hold more useless hearings that the Obama administration ignores? There’s a new game in national politics and the rules are being worked out as it progresses, it will be more confusing than the Affordable Care Act. It’s tragic for America so I’m not gloating, but the new game is affecting the very people that foisted that nightmare on America, there’s an odd mix of perversity and justice in that, picture the Senate and House chambers as empty as the ruins of the Roman forums.
Figures. Those are small voting blocs. Easy money.
I see that in Tampa another freedom-loving patriot has exercised his Second Amendment remedies.
Retired Police Captain, Nyp.
One of Amercas Finest.
Nice to see Albuquerque is having real success confronting the OPERATOR instead of running and hiding from the GUN, proving saving lives means confronting the PEOPLE involved instead being afraid of the GUN the person involved is using.
Maybe Senator Feinstein will try to get the assault weapons ban renewed again because of this.
I’m sure an inconsequential detail like the murder weapon being a .380 handgun won’t deter the good senator from her crusade against assault weapons.
Maybe Senator Feinstein should work to disarm Police Captains.
He was just standing his ground against that dangerous popcorn-throwing father of a three year-old girl.
Thank God for the 2d Amendment
Retired police captain….think about your example.
[…] to dole out a couple of cents per acre to the local counties. This is pittance is called PILT, Payment in Lieu of Taxes. For some rural Nevada counties the payment is still about 10 percent of the annual […]
“He was just standing his ground against that dangerous popcorn-throwing father of a three year-old girl.”
If only Tampa had New York City’s stop and frisk policies, this whole thing could’ve been stopped before it started.
Nah, no need for “stop and frisk” it was a retired police captain.
Nyps’ peeps (never letting a good crisis escape) are on it anyway, apparently the idea is to ban all retired police captains from movie theaters.
Another solution would be to ban killer popcorn from movie theaters. With all the bad stuff that goes into movie theater popcorn, I think former Mayor Plantation Owner Dickensian Nightmare Bloomberg would be supportive of this ban.
I’ve never been angry enough at someone to want to kill them, and I’m not trying to justify a murder, but I have to admit that I’ve been in a movie theater when someone nearby was talking (not texting) on their cell phone during the movie. Not a happy experience.
I read somewhere the movie hadn’t started yet. It was during the previews.
What really gets me is he went outside to get (what can only be guessed at being) his service weapon.
What gun law would prevent a retired cop from having a gun? Most cops purchase their weapon at retirement but some are issued the weapon as a part of retirement along with their badge.
Moreover all retired police ID’s act as a national concealed weapons permit. http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/44/926C
Gives me a real warm fuzzy.
Yes, nyp, we should all be disarmed because of some asshole ex-cop in Tampa. And all Porsches should be banned because of Paul Walker.
Meanwhile, your president is practicing to become Caesar: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-dems-39-ll-act-without-congress-004736977–politics.html
Sieg Heil, Baby!
Our lovely, caring about jobs, government added another 80,000 pages of regulations for our businesses, last year. Ø is stating the obvious fact after already doing it.
But no one is listening.
What happened to Rome 2000 years ago?
[…] Payment in Lieu of Taxes is how Congress, since 1976, has attempted to provide relief to counties with large tracts of non-taxable federal land so they can provide police and fire protection, education and other public services, as noted in this week’s newspaper column available online at The Ely Times and the Elko Daily Free Press. […]
[…] Payment in Lieu of Taxes is how Congress, since 1976, has attempted to provide relief to counties with large tracts of non-taxable federal land so they can provide police and fire protection, education and other public services. […]
[…] The BLM controls most of the western states. This is patently wrong. See the Feds made these huge land grabs by offering PILT deals. Payments in lieu of Taxes. The States turn over “unproductive” land to the Feds and get payments from the Feds in return. “More than what they would earn in taxes” or so they said. Utah took it. And it so happens that the PILT money is a fraction of what they would be making on the revenue from the Mineral Rights… OIL MONEY. Crude, Tar Sands, Oil Shale, Fracking… Black Gold… Texas Tea… And then all the Natural Gas on top of that. Billions of dollars worth and the Feds pay out Pennies in PILT. Nevada gets PILT payments as well. How’s that working out for them? […]