The federal government owns 28 percent of the land in the United States, including about half of the land in the 11 westernmost states.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised large increases in infrastructure investment.

During the election campaign, Donald Trump complained that “our airports are like from a Third World country.” Indeed, America’s airports could be a lot better. The problem is that they are virtually all owned by governments and run as bureaucracies.

George Will’s oped the other day argued that Congress should hurry up and fund an expansion in the Charleston, South Carolina, seaport. But his piece revealed why the federal government should reduce its intervention in the nation’s infrastructure, not increase it, as Clinton and Trump are proposing.

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has lost more than $50 billion since 2007, even though it enjoys legal monopolies over letters, bulk mail, and access to mailboxes. The USPS has a unionized, bureaucratic, and overpaid workforce. And as a government entity, it pays no income or property taxes, allowing it to compete unfairly with private firms in the package and express delivery businesses.

Rep. Darrell Issa proposes Cato-style aviation reforms in a CNN op-ed today.

For more than a century, America has been the global leader of the aviation industry. But these days, the government-run parts of the industry are inefficient and falling behind, including airports, security screening, and air traffic control (ATC).

Large spending cuts should be on the agenda when the next president enters office in 2017. Spending cuts would spur economic growth by shifting resources from lower-valued government activities to higher-valued private ones.

The next president will confront a range of fiscal crises that the current president has ignored. One of them is the ongoing implosion of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). With the rise of email, the volume of snail mail has plunged, and the USPS has lost more than $50 billion since 2007. The red ink will continue to gush as more bill paying, advertising, invitations, and other communications go online.

In recent weeks, the bureaucrats at both the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have recommended that politicians should have a green light to supposedly stimulate growth by increasing the burden of government spending.