A video for you
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
A video for you
As I mentioned a few weeks back, I’ve been asked to participate in a new project for Channel 3 in Las Vegas, for which I’ll be providing a weekly commentary during evening newscasts. We’re about three weeks in, and I’ve enjoyed both the opportunity to work with the talented team at Channel 3 as well as the chance to share NPRI’s ideas with a new audience.
This week, I wanted to share with you my latest commentary, which aired on Monday. The topic was taxes, and in my commentary I explain how the current efforts of lawmakers to raise taxes are based on an entirely false premise — that Nevada doesn’t spend enough on its public education system.
The video is below, and as always, I welcome your feedback. And be sure to follow NPRI on Twitter if you’d like to know in advance when my commentaries will air.
(Click the image or click here to watch)
Thanks for reading — and watching — and have a great weekend.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
Remember, if you'd like to receive the latest from NPRI, sign-up for our emails here.
Read moreIt never ends
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
It never ends
Have you ever heard — or, worse, had your children sing to you — “The Song that Never Ends”?
For those who aren’t familiar with the lyrics, it goes:
This is the song that never ends.
It just goes on and on my friends.
Some people started singing it not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it forever just because
It is the song that never ends...
And the song continues until you go crazy or bribe your kids to just stop singing it!
I was reminded of that song this week, when I was reading a Las Vegas Sun story about how the ACLU of Nevada is considering suing the state for not spending enough on education.
As the Sun notes, liberals’ attempts to intimidate by threatening lawsuits is a tactic that never ends:
The threat of a lawsuit over education inadequacy isn't new, with advocates bringing up the threat about every two years and whole legal papers exploring the issue.
Here’s the 30,000-foot view of the potential lawsuit’s argument:
- Nevada’s constitution says the “legislature shall encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual ... improvements.”
- Nevada’s constitution says the “legislature shall provide for a uniform system of common schools.”
- Nevada’s constitution says the legislature shall fund K-12 education before any other part of the budget.
- Nevada’s education system is doing poorly.
- Therefore, Nevada’s courts should make the legislature spend more on education.
There are a lot of things wrong with this argument, but let’s focus on two.
First, we’ve been trying to solve Nevada’s education problems by spending more for 50 years.
Even after adjusting for inflation, Nevada has nearly tripled per-pupil spending in the last 50 years. Spending more hasn’t worked, and spending more in the future will only further entrench the status quo. That’s because Nevada’s onerous collective bargaining law, NRS 288, gives unions more power over increases in education spending than elected officials have. NPRI has proposed a lot of solutions to Nevada’s education problems, but none involve spending more — because spending isn’t the problem.
The second problem is more fundamental and even more important. This type of lawsuit, if successful, would further weaken our very system of government. Power in our government is constitutionally divided between three branches, each with distinct and separate types of authority. These distinct powers allow each branch to check and balance the dominance of the others.
This is why the “separation of powers” principle is so important. If one person serves in two branches of government, it produces a disproportionate concentration of power — sabotaging the check that the branches should provide upon each other.
One person serving in two branches of government is problematic enough, but for one branch to assume the duties of another branch would be even more destructive. That’s what would happen if such a case were successful.
A fundamental role of the legislative branch is to spend taxpayer money. That’s a job for duly elected lawmakers, not Nevada judges — who already have more than enough to do.
Were a Nevada court to decide that it can determine how much state taxpayers should spend on education, it would demonstrate its own disdain for the constitution it is sworn to protect.
And that would be a huge problem. As James Madison observed, "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." (Emphasis added.)
Certainly, governmental tyranny is a matter of degree. But the record, throughout history and all around the world still today, is clear: Exceptions to the separation-of-powers principle diminish a fundamental structural protection of our liberties.
In some ways, America and Nevada are victims of our founders’ success. So excellent a job was done establishing a form of government structured to preserve liberty and limit governmental oppression, that many citizens have forgotten just how fragile freedom is — and how vigorously we must fight to defend it from even the smallest encroachments.
So while liberals will likely never end their cries to “spend more,” we also have a job that never ends: reminding our fellow citizens about the important principles at stake in our current public policy debates.
Take care,
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
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Wrong way Republicans
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
Wrong way Republicans
Do you remember Jim Marshall?
No, I’m not talking about the former congressman from Georgia. I’m talking about the other Jim Marshall, the former professional football player who was a defensive end for the Minnesota Vikings in the 1960s and ’70s.
Marshall had a very solid career, setting multiple records and earning a couple of Pro Bowl appearances. But what he’s most remembered for is something he probably wishes we’d all forget: In one of the most embarrassing blunders in sports history, Marshall, playing in a game in 1964, recovered a fumble and ran 66 yards — into the wrong end zone.
Now, there are all kinds of mistakes an athlete can make (and as a former amateur athlete myself, I’ve made most of them). But nothing is as bad as scoring for the wrong team.
I thought of Jim Marshall this week while reading the latest big news out of Carson City. A half-dozen Senate Republicans have announced what they’re calling the “Education Priority Initiative,” which would slap the mining industry with a $600 million tax hike over a two-year span and funnel the money into Nevada’s broken education system.
These Republicans, of course, campaigned for office as champions of limited government and responsible fiscal policy. To taxpayers, they essentially said: We’re on your team.
Yet here they are, like Jim Marshall, running in the wrong direction.
Of course, here in Nevada, there’s nothing new about self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives advocating for liberal policies. But it’s especially troubling to see it today. Our state’s economy is in a highly precarious position, and the unity of Republicans and Democrats in calling for higher taxes will only make matters worse.
The six Republicans behind this tax increase would likely protest that no such unity exists, since the tax increase on mining has been proposed as an alternative to a new margin tax, which is being pushed by the Nevada State Education Association and is supported by some legislative Democrats. Said Republican Senator and tax-increase proponent Scott Hammond: “The margins tax is a job-destroying tax that will force businesses to close and drive jobs out of Nevada, and it fails to ensure that more revenue actually goes to the classroom. On the other hand, the Education Priority Initiative will bring more equity to the current tax structure.”
Don’t fall for it. The differences between the two proposals, pace Sen. Hammond and his allies, are far less significant than their most fundamental similarity. That similarity is the false and dangerous premise on which they both rest: that Nevada doesn’t spend enough on education.
As NPRI’s Geoff Lawrence pointed out on Wednesday, Nevada over the past 50 years has nearly tripled education spending on a per-pupil, inflation-adjusted basis, yet student achievement remains unacceptably poor.
So both the margin-tax and mining-tax proposals would take more money out of our already fragile private economy and waste it — by throwing it at a problem that 50 years of evidence have proven can’t be solved with more money.
And it’s actually worse than that. By echoing the union-peddled hogwash that increased spending is the key to educational improvement, these senators are not only hampering Nevada’s economic recovery — they’re also undermining efforts to implement the kinds of structural reforms that would actually help students. And as their campaign-season rhetoric from not too long ago suggests, they know it.
As Jim Marshall reminded us, we’re all capable of folly. But at least Marshall’s wrong turn was accidental.
Until next time,
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
Remember, if you'd like to receive the latest from NPRI, sign-up for our emails here.
Progress on school choice
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
Progress on school choice
If you’ve been keeping up with NPRI’s E-Bulletins, you know that we’ve been very active during the current legislative session. In particular, Geoff Lawrence, the Institute’s deputy policy director, has been in Carson City full-time since February, sharing ideas with lawmakers, testifying on numerous bills and keeping an eye on legislative developments.
Geoff wrote a very informative piece that we published yesterday, titled “The good, the bad and the ugly: Part I.” (I haven’t confirmed this, but I’d like to think the title was inspired by my reference to Clint Eastwood in last Friday’s Week in Review).
In any event, Geoff’s commentary takes a look at some of the bills that failed to survive the deadline for receiving committee approval and have thus been relegated to the ash heap of history, unless resurrected by legislative leadership.
Among the bills that did survive, however, is one that I’ve been watching closely: Senate Bill 445. This bill, which is being pushed by Gov. Brian Sandoval, would provide tax credits to businesses that fund scholarships for students to attend a school of their own choice.
We at NPRI published a study a few years ago that detailed the many benefits that a tax-credit scholarship plan would entail, and it’s very encouraging to see the governor push this powerful idea. Given the decades-long failure of the state’s monolithic public-education system, any effort to expand school choice is not only welcome, but long overdue.
And in particular, the tax-credit scholarship idea is a true win-win: If enacted, the governor’s plan would expand educational options for students (which, the research incontrovertibly shows, would lead to higher achievement) while also generating significant cost-savings to the state. For the sake of Nevada’s students, let’s hope the governor fights spiritedly for this idea over the coming weeks.
In other news, I wanted to let you know about a new development here at NPRI that has us very excited. I’ve been invited to deliver a weekly commentary for Channel 3 in Las Vegas, which will air beginning next week, and I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to share NPRI’s ideas with such a broad audience.
About a half-dozen other commentators will be participating as well, including former gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid, so the series will feature a lot of different topics and viewpoints. My commentaries will air on a different day each week (but always during the 6 p.m. news broadcast), so if you’re interested in watching them, be sure to follow us on Twitter for updates on the schedule.
Finally, I wanted to extend my appreciation to all of you who responded to last week’s request for examples of pop-culture conservatism. There were a lot of quality suggestions, and the most popular was a great one from the music category: the Eagles song “Get Over It.”
Again, thanks to those of you who wrote in — and to all of you, thanks for reading, and have a wonderful weekend.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
Remember, if you'd like to receive the latest from NPRI, sign-up for our emails here.
Nation's biggest movie theater cuts hours to avoid Obamacare mandate
Surprised? Me neither. More unintended consequences that were entirely too predictable.
The nation's largest movie theater chain has cut the hours of thousands of employees, saying in a company memo that ObamaCare requirements are to blame.
Regal Entertainment Group, which operates more than 500 theaters in 38 states, last month rolled back shifts for non-salaried workers to 30 hours per week, putting them under the threshold at which employers are required to provide health insurance. The Nashville-based company said in a letter to managers that the move was a direct result of ObamaCare.
“In addition, some managers have requested guidance on what they should tell those employees negatively impacted and, at your discretion, we suggest the following,” read the memo obtained by FoxNews.com. “To comply with the Affordable Care Act, Regal had to increase our health care budget to cover those newly deemed eligible based on the law's definition of a full-time employee.”
“To manage this budget, all other employees will be scheduled in accord with business needs and in a manner that will not negatively impact our health care budget,” the message continues.
Government mandates can't make society richer, but they can make and are making us much poorer. And guess who gets hurt the most? Poor folks like these Regal employees, who are now only able to only work 30 hours a week.
Video: Government unions and the bankrupting of America
This video does a great job explaining how government unions are bankrupting America and many states. Enjoy.
Pop-culture conservatism
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
Pop-culture conservatism
I’ve been writing this Week in Review column for about a year and a half now, and ordinarily, the topics I cover in this space deal with some pretty heavy stuff.
But every now and then, it’s nice to step back and examine the political/policy world from a slightly lighter perspective.
One of the most consistent complaints I hear from conservatives and libertarians is that nearly everything associated with popular culture comes with a leftist bent. Whether we’re listening to music, taking our kids to the movies or simply trying to enjoy a weeknight sitcom, it seems we’re constantly bombarded with liberal talking points and other assaults on our ideological sensibilities. Most annoyingly, this happens quite often even when the song/movie/show has nothing whatsoever to do with politics.
Fortunately, however, there are some exceptions — some pop-culture offerings that either express a conservative message or, at the very least, direct criticism at liberal assumptions. I thought it would be fun this week to share a few favorite examples of mine. Since I’m woefully out of touch with current pop culture (especially for someone who’s only 34), most of my examples will be pretty dated. But since this list is hardly official, I hope you’ll give me a pass.
When we think of examples of conservative music, most people’s minds probably fixate on the country genre — and understandably so. But even though rock music (my personal favorite) has generally leaned leftward, there are a number of great exceptions from some of the most influential artists in rock-music history.
Some of my own favorites include The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and The Beatles’ “Revolution,” both of which serve as stinging rebukes of the revolutionary Left. Others that make my list are The Kinks’ “20th Century Man,” John Mellencamp’s “Small Town” and Cheap Trick’s “Taxman, Mr. Thief.” The Canadian band Rush has produced several songs that convey an unmistakable libertarian message, while Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” could easily serve as the anthem for the modern-day school-choice movement.
And the Ten Years After classic “I’d Love to Change the World” contains one of my favorite lyrical offerings of all time: Tax the rich, feed the poor, ‘til there are no rich no more. I have no idea whether it was the band’s intent, but it’s difficult to imagine a more brilliant encapsulation of the lost-on-liberals irony of redistributionist schemes.
The film industry, of course, is known to most conservatives as a wellspring of liberal propaganda. And it’s hard to argue with that view. Still, for those right-leaning moviegoers looking for something more politically palatable, there are some excellent options.
At the top of my list are all of the “Rocky” movies, as well as nearly anything featuring Clint Eastwood (the “Dirty Harry” films and, more recently, “Gran Torino” are particular favorites). Other great movies that convey at least partially conservative messages include “Groundhog Day” and “Forrest Gump,” and the Pixar film “The Incredibles” has become a well-established favorite among righties. Throw in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and you’ve got a pretty well-rounded list to get you started.
The TV category is much harder for me to address, mostly because, other than the news, I don’t watch much TV. But growing up in the 1980s, I was a huge fan of the show “Family Ties,” which starred Michael J. Fox as Alex P. Keaton, a conservative teenager who was always at odds with — and more grown-up than — his nostalgically hippy parents. More recent shows that have been popular among particular subparts of the conservative population include “24,” “Dog the Bounty Hunter” and “South Park.”
Of course, these lists are hardly exhaustive — which brings me to this week’s request of you. Please email me with some of your own favorite examples of pop-culture conservatism, and I’ll be sure to share the most popular entries in next week’s column. And if you’ve got examples from the present day, that’s even better. You’ll be helping me get up to speed.
In the meantime, thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
Remember, if you'd like to receive the latest from NPRI, sign-up for our emails here.
Legislative mandates increase average family's power bill by $236 a year; Updated
NV Energy's plan to raise power rates, called "NVision," has received a lot of attention, but the Legislature doesn't need to pass any new laws to increase the cost of your electricity. The laws it's already passed are doing that just fine.
The Public Utilities Commission recently did an analysis of power rates and found that legislative mandates cost the average family $19.71 a month in Southern Nevada and $15.01 a month in Northern Nevada.
What would your family do with an extra $236 a year?
Here's what the acronyms stand for.
- RPS: Renewable Portfolio Standard
- DSM: Demand Side Management (energy efficiency programs done to comply in part with Nevada's RPS)
- TRED: Temporary Renewable Development Charge ("temporary" charge of 20 years which benefits a solar project in case of utility financial difficulties)
- UEC: Universal Energy Charge (subsidy used to assist low-income folks)
- Franchise fees are charged by local governments.
As the charts make clear, Nevada's Renewable Portfolio Standard is driving up your rates substantially. Why? Because "renewable" energy is up to four times more expensive than natural gas and coal.
And with NV Energy required to obtain 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025, the costs to your family are only going to increase.
But some legislators aren't satisfied with those rate increases and want to force Nevada's families to pay even more by increasing Nevada's RPS to 35 percent by 2025.
Good grief. Another way government takes away money (and hence opportunities) away from your family.
Update: Thomas Mitchell with 4th St8 emails with more info:
The RPS cost for 2012 is really a carry over of the number from 2011. It should be higher when FERC releases Form No. 1 this month for both Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific. I have looked high and low for any Form No. 1 from FERC and have yet to find one.
More bad news for ratepayers.
Amazing: Segerblom says $3 billion tax increase would be ‘meaningless’ for average individual
Are you concerned about rising gas prices? Sen. Tick Segerblom doesn't appear to be — in fact, he wants to substantially increase Nevada's gas tax. And he thinks that tax increase would be "meaningless" for the average consumer.
Meaningless? Does he know any average or poor consumers?
The Las Vegas Democrat (Segerblom) said the timetable (for Project Neon) can be cut in half if his Senate Bill 377 becomes law. The bill would impose a 2 cent-per-gallon gasoline tax increase per year for 10 years. The tax, now 52.2 cents per gallon, would rise to 72.2 cents by the end of the decade. ...
Segerblom said the new tax was “meaningless” for the average consumer and would bring in $3 billion over 10 years.
Segerblom doesn't just want to increase the gas tax by 2 cents a gallon. He wants to increase the gas tax by 2 cents per gallon each year for 10 years, a 20-cent increase in total.
Let's say your family has two vehicles that get 30 MPG and you drive a combined 24,000 miles a year. You would pay an additional $160 in gas taxes in 2023 under Segerblom's bill.
If you're poor and can't afford a car with better gas mileage or have a long commute to work, you'd likely pay more.
We already know that higher gas prices have forced consumers to cut back on groceries and vacations. But don't worry, average citizen, Segerblom says tradeoffs like that are "meaningless."
Hungry kids because you had to cut back on groceries? "Meaningless," implies Segerblom.
Can't afford the entry fees to Red Rock Canyon for a family outing? "Meaningless," implies Segerblom.
Lose your home to foreclosure because this tax increase is the straw that breaks your financial back? "Meaningless," implies Segerblom.
The problem with tax-loving liberals like Segerblom is that they only see what is obvious on the surface and ignore the "unseen" impacts their policies have.
Segerblom can see Project Neon. There will be news reports, temporary construction jobs and a permanent structure.
There would be no news reports on kids going hungry because of this tax increase. There are no statistics on family outings that don't occur because of high taxes. There's no way to measure the families that would lose their homes to foreclosure because this tax increase would be the straw that breaks their financial back.
These are the consequences that are unseen by Segerblom, but these are also the consequences that are felt, known and struggled with by the "average" consumer.
Nevada: Not so free
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
Nevada: Not so free
One of my favorite things about being the president of NPRI is that I’m often invited to speak to different organizations around the state and share the Institute’s perspective on the current debates over public policy.
My speeches cover various topics, depending on the host organization, but there’s one subject in particular that has become a staple of just about all of my presentations. That subject is the many myths about Nevada governance that have been allowed to persist for far too long — and the way those myths distort the policy discussion.
Three myths in particular have been on my mind a lot lately in light of a new analysis released by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Those myths are that Nevada is 1) a low-tax state, 2) a small-government state and 3) a business-friendly state. We at NPRI have worked hard to correct the record on each of these fronts, and the new Mercatus report is further confirmation of what we’ve been proclaiming.
The report, titled Freedom in the 50 States, ranked all the states based on the level of freedom they offer in several areas, including economic freedom, personal freedom, tax burden, property rights and so on.
Overall, Nevada comes in 20th in terms of the amount of freedom it affords its citizens. That doesn’t sound too terrible, but a closer look at the report’s various categories is illuminating.
There were a number of categories where Nevada ranked high on the freedom chart: personal freedom (No. 2), gambling (No. 1) and gun control (No. 8), to name a few. We also scored high in the “bachelor party” category (No. 3) and in “alcohol” (No. 6).
But in a number of crucial categories — crucial particularly in light of the economic woes that continue to plague our state — Nevada scored near-average, or even quite poorly, on the freedom scale.
Those categories include economic freedom, where Nevada ranked 29th. And fiscal policy, where the Silver State came in 33rd. Then there’s the “tax burden” category, where we came in a lackluster 35th, and the “regulatory” category, where we were a slightly better 20th. And in most of these categories, Nevada has trended significantly downward in the last 10 years.
Most depressing of all, however, were two categories that really jumped out at me: educational freedom, where Nevada ranked a dismal 49th, and occupational licensing, where we were dead last at 50th. (The occupational-licensing score in particular reinforces a lot of the findings from NPRI’s recent policy study, The Path to Sustainable Prosperity.)
In other words, the only reason Nevada scores as high as it does overall is because of its libertarian leanings in the categories that are largely outside of the economic realm. In the categories most related to economic and fiscal issues — which, again, are especially crucial these days considering Nevada’s ongoing problems in those areas — the Silver State does much worse on the freedom front.
In addition, it’s worth noting that Nevada’s No. 20 overall ranking represents a seven-spot drop from the Mercatus Center’s report in 2009. And we’ve seen significant drops in the economic freedom (six spots), fiscal freedom (16 spots) and tax burden (10 spots) categories since that time, too.
These drops in Nevada’s scores are worth some serious reflection. Indeed, I make a point in my speeches to stress that in terms of its commitment to freedom-friendly policies, Nevada not only performs weakly but has been trending in the wrong direction. Why is this so important? Because it’s crucial to recognize that Nevada’s economic and fiscal health have deteriorated at the same time the state has drifted away from policies that prioritize liberty and toward those that involve bigger government.
The lesson here is this: As freedom recedes, so, too, does prosperity. The next time you hear a liberal argue that the reason behind all of Nevada’s problems is that our government is too small, our taxes are too low and our business owners are allowed to run amok, you should direct them to this new, powerful evidence to the contrary.
The truth is getting harder and harder to deny: The more liberals — of either party — have had their way, the worse off Nevadans have been.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
Remember, if you'd like to receive the latest from NPRI, sign-up for our emails here.
