land rent gives power to those who earn it

Today's top BBC story is Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers stepping down. One way to view this is that the US president made a lot of mistakes, and this (trying to send his own lawyer to the supreme court) is just one of them.

GWB comes from a wealthy oil family. You have to be wealthy to become US president - poor people never get elected. A lot of oil money is earned (in prospecting, drilling, etc.) and the rest of it is unearned: a company that can buy the best oil land has an unfair advantage over the others. With better land, they can do the same work as their less landed competitors yet gain higher profits. Land rent would calculate the unearned portion and takes that as tax. That creates a level playing field for all competitors (and also allows all other business activities to be tax free, thus rewarding entrepreneurs). Applying this to GWB, he could only get rich in oil if he was a smarter businessman than his competitors. It appears that he isn't, so under a land rent system he would not be highly wealthy, so he would not be elected President, so he could not make silly decisions like today's.

A better leader in the White House - another benefit of land rent.