Jeff Duncan: “the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday handed down a decision that will ultimately be very harmful to our freedom and our…”

“the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday handed down a decision that will ultimately be very harmful to our freedom and our prosperity. In a 5-to-4 decision, the Court decided that a city government could take a private home by eminent domain for the benefit of another private party. This decision was in the case of Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut, and it strikes a serious blow right at the heart of or the concept of private property, which our Founding Fathers believed in so strongly. If anyone does not realize how important private ownership of property is to both our freedom and our prosperity, they should do a more detailed study of economics and world history. The most prosperous countries in the world, without exception, have been those that gave the greatest protection to private property. Not only is it important to individuals, it is important to government as well. It sounds great for a politician to create a park; however, now that we have so many Federal, State, and local parks, we cannot take care of them properly. Also, most of them are vastly underused. But more importantly, when property goes from private to public ownership, it goes off the tax rolls. This means that taxes have to continually go up on the property that remains in private hands for the always increasing costs of schools and other public functions. We can never satisfy government's appetite for money or land, Mr. Speaker. I will repeat that.…”