Budget
Taxing economic growth away
Today the Wall Street Journal editorialized on America's uncompetitive position in the world due to our relatively high corporate tax rate. According to a new Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) study cited by the editors, America has the second-highest corporate tax rate among OECD countries.
Read morePictures are worth a thousand journalists
Jon Ralston's latest column in In Business Las Vegas not only claims that Nevada needs to raise taxes to address its budget shortfall, but that everyone who opposes tax hikes should be ignored. But a one-sided debate is like a one-handed clapping contest, so let's review the facts.
Worthless paper
Nevada's higher education regents want almost 10 percent more for their budgets despite the state's revenue shortfall. What planet are they living on? Nevada isn't even getting a positive rate of return on its current investment in higher education. How can the regents justify an even greater investment?
Corporate Welfare
The Reno Gazette-Journal lamented the loss of Reno's innovative wind-power generator manufacturing company Mariah Power by writing, "Lack of available talent and the short-term $1.8 million interest-free loan offered by Youngstown, Ohio, is what caused Mariah Power to move its manufacturing plant out of state."
Nevada’s not fat, it’s big boned
If your only source for news was ... well, the news, you would think Nevada's budget cuts are literally cutting through to the bone.
Easy math
Apparently State Sen. Bob Beers (R-Las Vegas) has been engaged in a hot debate over state spending that has spread from the Nevada Legislature into the newspapers and beyond. The Left now contends that per-capita state spending has dropped anywhere from 6.9 percent, according to Assemblyman Mo Denis (D-Las Vegas), to 29 percent, according to a mysterious big-government Utahan.
The room tax
Today's Las Vegas Review-Journal editorializes on the Nevada State Education Association's efforts to push through a 3 percent increase to the room tax, with much of the revenue to be allocated for public education funding.
Think gas prices are high? Think again
From 1961-2005, federal and state education spending per pupil grew 247 percent after adjusting for inflation. That is massive growth.
What might have been
As last week's blog entry (It's the spending, stupid) demonstrated, Nevada's budget crisis was self-inflicted ... too much spending and not enough self control. But what if Nevada had shown restraint over the last decade? Would we be better off or would the reduction in spending have made the state incapable of providing basic services for a rapidly growing population?
It's the spending, stupid
The housing market crash and drop in tourism have left Nevada short on cash and unable to pay for promised services. Nevada's projected budget shortfall of more than $1 billion has many on the Left screaming for more taxes. If taxes are not raised, they argue, the $1.2 billion shortfall will be devastating to "essential" state services. However, let's not be quick to blame the economy for Nevada's current situation.
