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States get land revenue

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I’d like to correct a mistake in Ray Vansant’s May 3 letter regarding Rep. Matt Shea’s initial support of Cliven Bundy of Nevada. Vansant stated that the “federal government … pays no property tax or other forms of revenue to the states.”

This is absolutely untrue. In 2012, the Bureau of Land Management alone allocated $1,718,655 in receipts to the state of Nevada (Public Land Statistics 2012). This is in addition to payments in lieu of taxes (PILT), which in 2013 amounted to $23,331,913 to the state of Nevada; Clark County, Bundy’s home county, received $3,118,324 of these PILT funds.

In the 2011-2012 fiscal year, federal funds provided over 33 percent of the budget for the state of Nevada, the federal government disburses considerable funds to the states while managing the public lands for all Americans.

Nancy Williams

Liberty Lake

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