Last year, Governor Brian Sandoval made $181,586.49 in total compensation. How many government employees in Nevada made more than the governor? One hundred, five hundred … maybe a thousand? No, nope and not even close. Over 2,000 government employees in Nevada made more in total compensation than the governor in 2012. Those employees include, a… [More...]
Transparent Nevada: Nevada’s Collective Bargaining Laws Enable Government Employees to Live High at Taxpayers’ Expense
May 1, 2013 By 4 Comments
Following Florida: Why School Choice Should Top Lawmakers’ Education Agenda
February 1, 2013 By 2 Comments
School choice, not Pre-K, has raised Florida’s test scores In 1998, Florida and Nevada had the exact same score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test for fourth grade reading. In 1999, however, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush instituted a series of reforms, including corporate tuition scholarships, vouchers, grading schools from A-F, ending social… [More...]
Why It’s Morally Wrong to Expand Medicaid: Government should protect property, not redistribute it
January 1, 2013 By 1 Comment
Why is stealing wrong? Is it wrong because it’s illegal? Or is stealing wrong because individuals have a God-given or natural right to their own property? To some people, that’s like asking, “Which came first: the chicken or the egg?” — in other words, they think the answer is unknowable. But there’s an essential difference… [More...]
Let’s Quit Killing Jobs in the Silver State: Legislators Should Remove Obstacles to Job Creation
December 3, 2012 By 1 Comment
Nevada’s unemployment rate has lingered at unacceptably high, double-digit rates for nearly four years. That uncomfortable statistic — reflecting deep human costs inflicted on many Nevada families — has led the state’s political class to make much ado about promoting “economic development.” During the 2011 legislative session, for example, lawmakers created a new “state framework”… [More...]
Taxpayers Don’t Prevail: Nevada’s prevailing wage law benefits narrow groups at public expense
November 1, 2012 By 1 Comment
Imagine you’re a plumber living in Mesquite. For most jobs, you’d probably earn as much as a plumber living in nearby St. George, Utah — $19.67 per hour, on average, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor. If you can get work on a public works project financed by Clark County or the… [More...]
$1.3 billion for 288 jobs: The failure of government-subsidized renewable energy
October 1, 2012 By 6 Comments
Another reason why government shouldn’t pick winners and losers in the economy In August, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hosted his fifth annual National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas. Delivering the keynote address, former president Bill Clinton claimed that if every state had a renewable-energy standard it would “put a lot of people… [More...]
Back to Schools You Wouldn’t Choose: Nevada parents have been left behind in the school-choice movement
September 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
As Nevada’s children return to school this fall, many parents will again be frustrated, recognizing that their children will be relegated to sub-standard education. Parents who can’t afford to live in the wealthy neighborhoods that host the best public schools, and who can’t afford private-school tuition, will discover that the educational opportunities available to their… [More...]
What the Obamacare Decision Means for State Policymakers: Court gives states the option of financing congressional scheme
August 1, 2012 By 1 Comment
Few decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court have captured the public interest as did its June opinion in NFIB v. Sebelius. This long-anticipated ruling was widely perceived as the final judicial test for one of the most controversial acts of Congress in decades: the Affordable Care Act (ACA), popularly known as Obamacare. The challenge centered… [More...]
Margins Tax Mayhem: Unions’ Tax Initiative Would Devastate Small, Struggling Businesses
July 6, 2012 By 1 Comment
In a long-anticipated move, the hard-left union bosses of the Nevada AFL-CIO and the state teachers union marked D-Day this year by launching another assault against Silver State businesses. A ballot initiative filed by the unions would ask lawmakers to hammer businesses with a new margins tax and then earmark the money to directly benefit… [More...]
The West Fires Back: Utah takes land-rights issue to next level … Will Nevada be next?
June 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Some will call it an ultimatum. It is. But an ultimatum is often necessary when one party refuses to recognize the constitutional rights of another. And that’s why Utah Gov. Gary Herbert recently signed into law legislation challenging the federal government’s authority to occupy state lands. Utah’s HB 148, the Transfer of Public Lands Act,… [More...]
Inflated Salaries Revealed: More than 1,000 government employees made over $200,000 in total compensation in 2011
May 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Pop quiz time. Who made more in base pay in 2011: Gov. Brian Sandoval — at $143,426.25 — or the parks director for the City of Reno? Who made more in base pay in 2011: Any of Clark County’s 15 top-paid senior attorneys or Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, who earned $140,389.37? Finally, who made more… [More...]
Texas Margin Tax: Always a Bad Idea: Margin Tax is More Destructive than Alternatives
February 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Leaders in the Democratic majority during the 2011 state legislative session proposed a dramatic change to Nevada’s tax system: Phase out the Modified Business Tax — a tax on private-sector payroll — and replace it with a new, larger levy modeled after Texas’ business margin tax. The effort gained so little traction in Carson City… [More...]
Examining the Tax Plans of Top GOP Candidates: Proposals range from gournd-breaking flat taxes to tweaking the status quo
January 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment
In 2010, Americans spent 6 billion hours, which is approximately 8,800 lifetimes, and $480 billion doing their taxes. This represents a huge deadweight loss — time and money wasted jumping through government-mandated hoops — for individuals and America’s economy. It’s also why, regardless of how much how you think the federal government needs to collect… [More...]
Hiding Behind Opaque Numbers: Nevada PERS Accounting Practices are Concealing Taxpayers’ Real Liabilities
December 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Nothing pleases a politician more than the ability to promise lavish benefits to important constituencies without having to pay for them. Nevada lawmakers long ago found a vote-buying cash cow of this nature in the state’s Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS). PERS manages a defined-benefits pension system that operates much differently from the retirement funds… [More...]
Increasing Student Achievement: Sandoval and Bush Work to Bring Florida-Style Education Reforms to Nevada
November 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
It’s easy to be cynical about education and education-reform efforts in Nevada. For decades, we’ve known that Nevada’s education system needs dramatic improvement. And for decades, unions, led by the Nevada State Education Association, have told Nevadans that spending more money would improve our schools. Thus, spend we have. Over the last 50 years, Nevada… [More...]
How much is too much?: Government wages are extravagant and arbitrary
October 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
It’s one of the most challenging questions facing labor economists today: At what level should most public employees be paid? In public sector employment, the typical price signals that help determine wage rates in competitive labor markets are absent. After all, most government agencies do not compete in an open labor market wherein they must… [More...]
The Dreaded “R” Word —- Revenues
September 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
There is no doubt that Nevada has been one of the hardest hit economies not only in the United States, but even the world. Our double-digit unemployment rate is the highest in the nation month after month – exceeding even Greece’s unemployment. Our housing market is second only to Detroit’s, with more than 70 percent… [More...]
ObamaCare will Squeeze Education, Other Needs: Nevada Medicaid commitments on track to crowd out alternative priorities
August 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Often lost in the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) — the sweeping health care “reform” legislation popularly known as ObamaCare — is the impact it will have on education, public safety and other public services as health insurance subsidies begin to consume a greater share of state spending. Congressional Democrats… [More...]
Large Tax Increase Traded for Small Reforms: Tax Issues Define Legislative Session
July 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
For the first 108 days of the 2011 Nevada Legislative Session, Gov. Brian Sandoval defined the policy debate by being a strong advocate for Nevada’s taxpayers and business owners. On May 26 however, the Nevada Supreme Court correctly ruled that state government couldn’t take $62 million from the Clean Water Coalition and transfer that money… [More...]
A Model of Failure: A New Study Exposes the Law Behind Nevada’s Educational Woes
May 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
If you were to build a business enterprise from scratch, you’d likely consider a number of different models — various ways to strike a proper balance between necessarily competing objectives. For example, while you would probably seek to offer competitive salaries or wages to your employees, you would also be mindful of the need to… [More...]
Unions Prevail, While Most Nevadans Struggle: Prevailing wage laws cost taxpayers billions
April 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In the 2011 Nevada Legislature, lawmakers in the majority are again carrying water for organized trade unions — from the Keynesian “jobs fund” proposal to the mercantilist “Nevada Jobs First” proposal. Longtime Nevada residents know this is nothing new. It began in the 1930s, when legislators first adopted the state’s prevailing wage requirements on public… [More...]
Hold On to Your Wallet: Legislature Once Again Has Taxpayers Bracing for Another Hit
No man’s life, liberty or property is safe while the legislature is in session,” Mark Twain famously said while covering the biennial mess in Carson City. Despite Twain’s warnings, Nevada lawmakers are meeting once again, for the 77th regular legislative session, and Nevada taxpayers are realizing, once again, that their property is not safe. That’s… [More...]