One way to resolve the affordable housing shortage would be to follow President-Elect Trump’s advice and build houses on federal lands.

Nowhere could this have a greater positive economic impact than Las Vegas, where the urban area is surrounded by federal land. Californians continue to move to Nevada (where there is no state income tax) in large numbers, and the housing stock is constrained by the federal government’s vast Nevada land holdings.

Edward Pinto and Arthur Gailes of the American Enterprise Institute call for such a strategy in a Las Vegas Review-Journal commentary (Homestead 2.0), noting:

Sale of a minuscule 0.3 percent (about 800 square miles) of BLM land would be enough for about 3 million to 4 million single-family detached and townhomes…

The greatest beneficiaries would be homebuyers. Building more housing is the only way to ensure homeownership remains affordable for the next generation of Americans.

And this is another painless way to reduce the national debt. No brainer.