Experts poking through President Bush's 2007 federal budget proposal discovered that big chunks of funding for rural schools and maintenance of back-country roads had been cut.

But folks directly concerned with such matters shouldn't fret. The Bush administration also announced a plan last week to restore some of that money - by selling U.S. Forest Service land.

That's right. The Bush administration is cutting budget funds for necessary programs, then wants to back-fill by selling public land. Twisted logic, to be sure, but sadly, it has become the hallmark of this administration.

On the auction block - if Congress approves the plan - will be about 300,000 acres in 32 states, including 85,000 acres of national forest in California. Within that group is 430 acres in our own Los Padres National Forest.

Where do you suppose the White House comes up with these schemes? From officials in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, apparently.

One such official said the land to be sold is remote and of not much use to the public anyway.

If this deal wins congressional approval, it will be the first time since the Forest Service was created in 1905 that a sale of this magnitude of public land would be held. President Teddy Roosevelt established the forest system and the agency to protect it, a concept apparently not appreciated by the Bush administration.

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The White House can expect a fight on this one. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein called the selling of Forest Service land a “terrible idea, based on a misguided sense of priorities.” What she means is the White House had no trouble finding billions of dollars to subsidize energy companies - which, by the way, are reporting record profits - but could not find the few hundred million needed to support rural schools and roads without raiding the national forests.

A Department of Agriculture spokesman said the Bush proposal amounts to only about a 10th of 1 percent of the total land in the national forests, and that acreage sold off could be regained in new land acquisitions.

That wouldn't be necessary if the Bush administration would just leave the existing forests alone.

February 20, 2006