Eminent domain is “a wonderful thing,” says 2016 presidential candidate and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.
Speaking in an interview with Fox News last week, Trump reiterated his support for eminent domain, a policy that invokes the power of a state or a national government to take private property for public or private use. It’s also a policy that has been criticized by many in the GOP.
Trump told host Bret Baier that eminent domain is “a wonderful thing” when it’s creating jobs and roads and it’s for the public good. He added that “you’re not taking property” but rather “you’re paying a fortune for that property,” citing as high as 10 times the property’s value.
According to Trump, the idea that people are forced to give up their homes with limited compensation is simply a myth.
“I think eminent domain is wonderful — if you’re building a highway and you need to build, as an example, a highway and you’re going to be blocked by a holdout or — in some cases it’s a holdout. Just so you understand, nobody knows this better than I do,” said Trump. “Because I’ve built a lot of buildings in Manhattan, and you’ll have 12 sites and you’ll get 11 and you’ll have the one holdout and you end up building around ‘em, and everything else, OK, so I know it better than anybody.”
He added:
“I think eminent domain for massive projects — for instance, you’re [going to] create thousands of jobs and you have somebody that’s in the way and you pay that person far more — don’t forget, eminent domain, they get a lot of money,” Trump said. “And you need a house in a certain location because you’re going to build this massive development that’s going to employ thousands of people, or you’re going to build a factory that without this little house, you can’t build the factory. I think eminent domain is fine.”
His comments come as Club For Growth, a conversation organization, has initiated attack ads on Trump for his support of the controversial law. Trump dismissed the ads by noting that he didn’t donate to the group so that’s why it’s launching such attacks.
Trump’s remarks are drawing the attention of some of his rivals.
Speaking in an interview with The Federalist Radio Hour, 2016 presidential candidate Carly Fiorina slammed Trump for his “crony capitalism.” She also criticized Trump for his endorsement of Kelo vs. City of New London, a much debated 2005 Supreme Court ruling on eminent domain.
“I think Donald Trump, among others, has engaged in crony capitalism in its most raw and abusive form. When commercial interests get together with government to take away private property for their own commercial interests, that’s a big problem,” said Fiorina. “And I think I join so many conservatives in saying that eminent domain has been abused. And it has been abused by the collusion between governments eager for revenue and businesses eager for competitive advantage. So I find the Kelo case—if ever there was a case for judicial engagement instead of judicial restraint, it’s this set of issues.”
Trump does indeed have quite a bit of history with eminent domain. In 1994, Trump colluded with Altantic City government officials to seize the home of a senior widow in order to construct a limousine parking lot that would be a part of the Trump Plaza hotel and casino.
For the past decade, since the Kelo decision was made, Americans have been pushing for eminent domain reform. However, most opponents of eminent domain are against the idea of taking private property for private use. But what about the government seizing property for public use? This is an issue that should be addressed, too.
Economist Walter Block may have said it best: “Eminent domain is totally and completely inconsistent with free enterprise and libertarianism. It amounts to no more and no less than land theft.”
–AM
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