Fiscal
Goal: Actually educate children
The State of Nevada Controller's Office released its "Report to the Citizens" on Tuesday, and beyond the obvious (Nevada spent more money in FY2008 than in FY2007 despite the recession), what are most interesting are the "Performance Measures" Controller Kim Wallin reports.
Read moreMythbusting economies of scale
Dr. Elliot Parker, an economist at the University of Nevada, Reno, has written a memo (in addition to two newspaper columns) to Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Jim Rogers on Nevada's budget, giving reasons why Nevada needs to raise taxes. NPRI has been researching the validity of his claims, and we have already made several counterpoints.
The untenable nature of NV state employee pay raises
The ongoing recession has drawn attention recently to the lavish pay raises enjoyed by Nevada's state government workers. However, what has been lost on many observers is that the pay structure for state workers suffers from a systemic problem. Pay raises for state workers are far out of line with what workers in the private sector earn even during periods of robust economic growth.
How do you do math?
Still no word – after multiple requests – from the Gibbons administration on how the state is getting the 34 percent budget-cut figure it's been giving the media.
Media pundits still confused
In "Ostriches are isolated" Jon Ralston attacked the Nevada Policy Research Institute for its criticism of how the government and the media both have handled the discussions and coverage of the state budget-cutting issue. We had the temerity to ask how the alleged "34 percent cut" was calculated – a critical question to which we never received an answer.
Ralston Math
In the second phase of Ralston's missive, Ostriches are isolated, he criticizes NPRI's math with some pretty bogus reasoning. On at least three occasions Jon Ralston has claimed that Nevada currently faces a $2.5 billion shortfall. Ironically, it's a claim only he has made.
Under-the-radar taxation
While recent attention has focused on the state's revenue shortfall and the related debate over whether to increase taxes, the fact that state lawmakers have already raised taxes has gone relatively unreported in the media.
The pampered Queen
In Brian Greenspun's latest column on the auto bailout (see our blog post, Big Three Theft about it), the Las Vegas Sun editor relies on an interesting take on history to paint the senators who voted against the bailout in a bad light. Greenspun says that the bailout's failure in the Senate produced "a shining moment for the people in Congress who hung tough for ideological reasons."
Ruling class becoming too big for britches
Critics and big-government advocates have continuously derided Gov. Jim Gibbons' repeated pledge for "no new taxes." These critics are more concerned with the wealth and size of the ruling government class than they are with the welfare of Nevada families. They are calling for large tax increases during a deepening recession.
Spending limits needed
As previously mentioned in this space, had a Tax And Spending Control (TASC) amendment been part of Nevada's constitution – a measure akin to the one State Senator Bob Beers repeatedly proposed – it would have eliminated most of Nevada's current budget shortfall. That's because TASC would have limited government spending increases to the rate of population growth plus inflation.
