Actor Wesley Snipes spent three years in jail for failing to file tax returns from 1999 to 2001. Rancher Cliven Bundy hasn’t paid the federal government its due in more 20 years. But this lawbreaker is not in jail; he’s grabbing headlines while ripping off American taxpayers.

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy was all over the national media this past week when federal Bureau of Land Management agents seized his cattle to settle the more than $1 million in unpaid fines he’d racked up since 1993. Armed militants flocked to Bundy’s side, prompting the bureau to back off for fear of human safety.

The fines are a result of Bundy grazing his 900 cattle on 600,000 acres of bureau-managed public lands since 1993 without a permit. He’s ignored his fees, fines, permits and multiple court orders.

Plenty of other ranchers pay their grazing fees; in fact, the Bureau of Land Management issues 18,000 permits for grazing on 160 million acres of public lands. The U.S. Forest Service allows grazing on an additional 81 million acres of public lands.

Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze was right when he said, “Mr. Bundy owes the American taxpayers in excess of $1 million.” Public lands belong to the American public. Regardless of his convoluted read of the Nevada Constitution, Bundy owes all of us that tidy sum. And he should us owe much, much more.

Supposedly, the Bureau of Land Management takes livestock prices, cost of cattle production and private grazing fees into account when setting the fee per head of cattle for grazing on public lands. Government data pegs private grazing fees at roughly $18 per animal unit month (which represents the amount of forage (e.g. grass) a cow and her calf need for a month) throughout the West over the past two years. In Nevada, the average private land grazing fee was $15 per animal unit month. Yet this year, the fee for grazing on public land in Nevada and elsewhere is set at $1.35 per animal unit month.

Certainly there are differences between private land and public land in quality, but there are also a variety of federal range management programs (such as killing wolves and other predators) that also benefit ranchers.

Moreover, 50 percent of grazing fees collected by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service (or $10 million, whichever is greater) go to a range betterment fund in the Treasury. According to the bureau, these so-called “Range Improvement Funds” are used “solely for labor, materials, and final survey and design of projects,” presumably benefiting ranchers.

Taxpayers should get fair market value from private enterprises using public resources. Ranchers already graze cattle on public lands for a steal. Bundy is a crook, but the way the federal grazing system treats taxpayers is criminal as well.