Dumb Policy

The proposed sale of 112 acres of Veterans Administration land at two Los Angeles locations is shortsighted and misguided. The idea is to help pay off the federal government’s debts, but the sale would not dent the deficit. What it would do is further crowd a densely populated area and come at the expense of the area’s veterans.

The Reagan Administration has pushed the sale of 80 acres at the VA’s 442-acre hospital facility in Westwood and 32 acres at its 164-acre property in Sepulveda. It considers the land, owned by taxpayers and intended to serve veterans, to be in excess of VA needs. But the Administration has not justified reneging on its commitment to veterans.

Selling federal land to reduce the debt is dumb public policy. The Los Angeles land, some of the most valuable that the government owns, is valued at $360 million. That wouldn’t pay a day’s interest on the deficit, which will top $230 billion this year. To make a real dent in this year’s debt, Washington would have to sell a good chunk of the country.

The VA land is not, as the government contends, either idle or surplus to government needs. The Wadsworth and Sepulveda VA hospitals, to which the land is connected, serve 1.5 million veterans, a third of whom are over 65. For veterans over 65 who are indigent or have service-related injuries, VA care is automatic. Both hospitals now operate at about two-thirds capacity, and may have to expand to meet the growing population of elderly veterans. The VA predicts that the percentage of veterans 65 or older will double by the year 2000. It is already considering using the two areas for a number of purposes, including a state veterans’ home and a cemetery. If the land was sold, the VA would have to try to buy it back at a higher price or look elsewhere, far from the hospitals.

There are aesthetic reasons for keeping the land as well. The office buildings or shopping centers that would be built on the land would clog the already congested roads and pave over the area’s last bit of real earth. Finally, the land is used extensively by Westwood and Sepulveda residents for recreation.

If the Reagan Administration took a referendum on the proposed sale, it would surely fail. Almost everyone but the Administration opposes it: VA officials and doctors, neighbors and local and state government officials. The House of Representatives has voted to block the sale, and Alan Cranston and Pete Wilson are trying to get the Senate to do the same. Trying to reduce the budget deficit by selling assets--relatively puny assets, at that--makes little sense. The veterans need the land, and the area hardly needs less open space. This is no way for government to pay off its debts.