In the Kelo case argued before the Supreme Court today, dealing with whether a city can take private property and give it to some other private actor, the city's legal counsel recognized no bounds on the power of government to take property:
Justice Antonin Scalia ... describes Horton's position as: "You can always take from A and give to B, so long as B is richer." And O'Connor offers this concrete example: What if there's a Motel 6 but the city thinks a Ritz-Carlton will generate more taxes? Is that OK?
Yes, says Horton. (Link)
Wow. The arrogance is breathtaking. Other than his presumably grudging acceptance of the Constitutional requirement that the city pay fair market value for the land, the city's counsel - one Wesley W. Horton - would make the creators of the old Soviet kolkhozy proud.
Note, by the way, that the requirement to pay fair market value is a grossly inadequate safeguard on government power for two reasons in Kelo. First, it fails to take into account the subjective valuations placed on the property by people whose families have lived on the land, in at least one case, for a 100 years. In other words, if the Supreme Court rules for the city, the government will be able to seize land at a price considerably below the reservation price of the owners. Second, unlike the prototypical eminent domain case, in which the land is seized to build, say, a school or road, in this case the city is using eminent domain to seize property that will then be turned over to a private developer. If this new development increases the value of the property, all of that value will be captured by the new owner, rather than the forced sellers. As a result, the city will have made itself richer (through higher taxes), and the developer richer, while leaving the forced sellers poorer in both subjective and objective senses. As I opined this am, it's a moral outrage.