Sandoval backs another tax increase
Do you remember in Gov. Brian Sandoval's State of the State speech where he said that "Nevada’s employers cannot afford higher taxes, and I will not support them"?
Even if you do, apparently he doesn't. This is becoming a depressing theme.
Gov. Brian Sandoval said Tuesday that he will support legislation to levy a 0.25 percentage point increase in the sales tax rate in Clark County to hire more police officers.
Sandoval said that because voters in Clark County approved the tax in advisory question in 2004, then he will not stand in the way of their wishes and oppose a tax increase.
The sales tax rate in Clark County already is 8.1 percent and would increase to 8.35 percent with the quarter-cent police tax.
And will this money lead to more cops? Nope, just higher pay for the ones already on staff.
Now, Metro brass have dropped even the pretense that the second quarter-cent tax hike would be used to hire additional officers. They're asking for this new tax to go into the department's general fund, where it will help finance pay and benefits for current officers. Or, as Metro CFO Karen Keller tells it, "We need a combination of an additional quarter cent as well as the flexibility in how we can spend those funds." ...
1,998 Metro employees took home more than $125,000 in pay and benefits in 2011 or that 852 of those employees topped $150,000 in compensation. That's according to official payroll records received by NPRI and available at TransparentNevada.com.
And it gets better. Las Vegas Metro currently spends $1.8 million a year for numerous police officers and other employees to ... work for their unions.
Collective-bargaining agreements throughout Clark County — including its cities and public entities — explicitly give government labor unions almost 70,000 hours of paid-leave time each year to conduct union business, a Nevada Journal investigation found. ...
The most lucrative contract is between the City of Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, which receives over one million tax dollars and 15,500 hours a year for union members to perform union work. Las Vegas also pays its Metro Supervisors Association and its Police Protective Association, Civilian Employees, Inc., more than $430,000 a year and $300,000 a year, respectively, for union employees to do work for their private organizations.
To conclude, Sandoval supports raising taxes so government employees making over $150,000 a year can receive a pay increase and a government agency can continue subsidizing its employee unions to the tune of $1.8 million a year. Good grief.
Read moreThe power of choice
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The power of choice
There are lots of laws and principles we all take for granted in life, among them the laws of nature, gravity and physics. I know the winter will bring colder weather, I know I’m in no danger of flying out of Earth’s atmosphere if I jump into the air and I know that walking into a brick wall will hurt.
These laws are universal across cultures, and indeed, they’re so omnipresent that we rarely if ever take the time to consider them. And that’s entirely understandable.
In free societies, however, there are other laws we take for granted as well — even though we shouldn’t. Chief among them is a basic law of economics: that competition produces quality.
We assume that when we go to the grocery store, for instance, we’ll have a multitude of cereal brands from which to choose. We assume something similar when we go to a shoe store or a car dealership. And the principle applies as well when we decide which restaurant to eat at, which yoga studio to go to or even which church to attend. Just as important is that we know, inherently, that the fact of having more options is to our benefit. Our power of choice ensures that those who provide goods and services must compete for our business by striving to meet our needs, desires and demands. In the ultimate win-win situation, producers reap financial rewards in exchange for making consumers happy.
This freedom is fundamental in our society, even as it remains a foreign concept in much of the world. It explains, more than any other factor, why prosperity is so widespread in some places and tragically lacking in others.
Still, there’s one area of even our society where this element of choice has long been curiously absent: the realm of education.
Just as our ability to choose which restaurant to eat at increases the likelihood that we’ll be satisfied with our meal, so too would the ability to choose where to send our children to school produce better results and happier parents and students. For decades, however, our education policy has contained the assumption that the realities of markets and economics stop at the schoolhouse door.
Most children attend the schools to which the government assigns them. Knowing that parents have only a limited ability to remove a child from a particular school and send him or her elsewhere insulates our schools from competition and thus eliminates an important incentive to perform at a high level. The result of this approach has been a calamitous collapse in educational quality from coast to coast.
Fortunately, a movement to empower parents with the freedom to decide for themselves which type of education would be best for their kids is gaining traction all across the country. This week — dubbed “National School Choice Week” by the proponents of greater educational freedom — has featured a nationwide awareness campaign to inform policymakers as well as ordinary citizens of the need to inject more choice and competition into our education systems.
It’s a movement that must succeed, and I’m proud to say that we at the Nevada Policy Research Institute are already engaged in the fight for increased parental choice in education.
I don’t want to spend too much time here going over the extensive data demonstrating quite clearly the many benefits that school choice produces. For that, I’ll simply direct you to an excellent commentary on the subject that Victor Joecks wrote earlier this week, as well as an excerpt from NPRI’s Solutions 2013 publication that we highlighted recently.
I simply want to make this point when it comes to the debate over school choice: Let’s use our heads.
We see every day the positive effects of making producers compete for consumers. We’d dismiss as absurd any argument in favor of the government creating a monopolistic, one-size-fits-all approach to deciding where we shop, what we eat or what kinds of movies we watch.
So let’s not be so foolish as to accept the line — propagated most persistently by the teacher unions and their preferred politicians — that the best way to improve educational quality is to continue to throw more money at a system that lacks the most essential ingredient for excellence: parental choice.
Look, we all know Nevada’s record is dismal when it comes to student achievement. You’d probably have a hard time getting liberals and conservatives to agree that today is Friday, but we all agree that the results our state is seeing on the education front are unacceptable.
Now it’s time for us all to recognize the clear solutions. Over the next few months, Nevada’s lawmakers will have an opportunity to do the right thing on education policy — to provide parents with more choices when it comes to where and how their children are educated. It’s an opportunity that, for our children’s sake, they can’t afford to miss.
Thanks for reading, and take care.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
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UNLV stadium project wants a room tax increase
Surprised? Don't be. Once crony capitalists think they can get their hands in the taxpayer till, more is never enough.
UNLV stadium boosters have long stressed that an on-campus tax district would carry the weight of financing a proposed 60,000-seat sports and entertainment venue, but they now say they're concerned that this funding source might not be enough.
Additional funding sources under discussion include a new fee on rental of each hotel room across the Las Vegas Valley, officials at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, confirmed late Monday.
"We have to plan for the contingency of what if the tax increment district doesn't provide adequate funds," said Don Snyder, dean of UNLV's hotel administration college and the university's point man on the stadium.
In other words, if the project isn't successful enough to generate sufficient tax dollars to subsidize itself, project backers want to pass their costs onto hotels and their guests.
Crony capitalism at its finest.
Here's an idea. If a business or group of investors has an idea they think would be profitable, put up your own money and reap either the profits or losses. That's capitalism. That's freedom. If businessmen and women are risking their own money, it's also why profits, even large profits, are just.
Depending taxpayer handouts to build your business, however, and then wanting even more tax dollars to subsidize your future losses is unjust.
What gives the government the right to take money from one business or taxpayer and give it to another? Government exists to protect property not redistribute it.
Aside from the philosophical problems— which should end the discussion entirely — there are plenty of practical objections to UNLVNow.
Exhibit A is the Reno Aces ballpark. Team owners want a $30 million subsidy from the city's general fund to support the stadium after its Tax Increment Financing scheme didn't produce enough revenue.
Exhibit B is what's happening right now in Henderson. The city of Henderson is suing sports stadium "developer" Chris Milam. It's accusing Milam of using his "Las Vegas National Sports Center" as a ruse to get land at a steep discount from the BLM. Land that, according to the city's lawsuit, he was planning to sell "piecemeal to residential and commercial developers at a substantial profit."
Exhibit C is the "hundreds of other studies and books ... (that) reach the same conclusion: Public support of professional and minor league sports is a bad investment.
In practically none of the cities these studies examined did new sports stadiums lead to any significant new private investment or provide for any significant economic benefits to the local economy besides the jobs generated by the initial capital construction of the stadiums. More important, the new stadiums generally were not even profitable or self-financing. Nor could cities point to rising land prices or economic development in the surrounding community. Even as tourist attractions, the stadiums either simply transferred sales from somewhere else or failed to demonstrate that the local hotels were filled as a result of the sports events."
Government has a very important role — it's supposed to uphold the rule of law, enforce contracts and protect individual rights to life, liberty and property.
If that's not "exciting" enough for some elected officials, join the business world. Just don't join government to the business world. Along with being unjust, it doesn't end up for anyone but the crony capitalists.
Obama and Beyonce
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, click here and enter your email address.
Obama and Beyoncé
There’s been a big hullabaloo over the revelation that pop diva Beyoncé opted to lip-sync the national anthem at Barack Obama’s inauguration this week. Her critics miss the point. I’m convinced that her performance was brilliantly designed to befit the occasion: an inaugural address during which the president paid mere lip service to the cause of responsible government.
As is so often the case with progressives, the president’s approach to public policy is based on an obsession with inputs — the more technical term for what the Left commonly refers to as “investments.” Thus when the president says, as he did repeatedly during his inaugural speech, that government intervention is needed to address a particular problem, we know exactly what he means: We need to spend more money.
The problem with this is that, even if you accept the premise that government action is the best solution to a given problem, to start by determining how much money you want to spend on solving it is to get things completely backwards. The responsible way to govern is to first identify certain objectives that government needs to accomplish, and then determine the spending levels that will be required to accomplish them. The focus must be on outputs.
But that’s not where President Obama’s focus is. When the president says, “We will respond to the threat of climate change,” we know what’s coming: ever-larger amounts of government money thrown at the alleged problem, without any real mechanism for measuring or even defining success.
The best illustration of the president’s thinking actually came not during his inaugural speech, but during one of his presidential debates with Mitt Romney last year. After Romney had noted that student achievement in Massachusetts, when he was governor there, had led the nation, President Obama protested that Romney didn’t deserve credit for this accomplishment because he had cut spending on education.
In other words, Romney had found a way to produce high-quality results while saving money. To most of us, this is the very definition of efficiency and should be applauded and, wherever possible, replicated. Only in the progressive worldview is the idea of accomplishing more with less something to be ridiculed.
Again, we can debate all day whether government ought to even be involved in a particular area of society. And I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that when it comes to government intervention, I’m a big skeptic.
But in the areas where government is involved, for better or worse, we need to make sure that it’s focused on the right things — outputs, not inputs.
It’s something Nevada policymakers ought to keep in mind during the upcoming legislative session. And indeed, they ought to take their cue from Gov. Brian Sandoval in this regard.
We at NPRI have often been critical of the governor’s policies, but one of the best things he’s done is shift from Nevada’s outdated baseline-budgeting approach to a performance-based alternative. It’s actually an idea that NPRI has promoted, precisely because it reflects the need to prioritize outputs over inputs.
Policymakers — state or national, Republican or Democrat — would better serve the people they represent by approaching their jobs from this perspective. In doing so, they’ll be promoting responsible government — not merely in word, but also in deed.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
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, click here and enter your email address.
Sebelius argues raising taxes won't hurt Nevada businesses
Do higher taxes hurt businesses? Not according to liberal Review-Journal columnist Steve Sebelius.
If low or no taxes attracted business, Nevada would be booming and California would be languishing. Instead, it's the opposite.
This isn't the first time Sebelius has tried to argue that Nevada's businesses would do just fine paying higher taxes.
Argument 3: Higher taxes will undercut efforts to lure businesses to Nevada. This canard just won't go away, despite the fact that it's manifestly false. Nevada has had lower taxes than all its neighbors for years, and is one of just three states with no corporate income tax at all. If this argument were true, Nevada would be teeming with a diversity of business instead of being the unemployment capital of the country.
Sebelius commits the same error in both arguments, so let's dissect his logical fallacy.
Instead of examining the effect of taxes on businesses in a vacuum — i.e. holding all other factors equal — Sebelius compares two states that are different in thousands of ways. He then plucks out one factor (taxes) and attributes the economic differences between Nevada and California to that factor alone.
Let's use an analogy to show how misguided Sebelius' argument is.
Imagine that, on Jan. 1, John — going as fast as he could — ran two miles in 20 minutes. On Jan. 2, John started smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. On March 1, John ran two miles in 18 minutes.
Does that prove that heavy smoking increases cardiovascular endurance? It could ... using Sebelius' logic.
But it's important to get the whole story. What other factors changed?
On Jan. 2, John also started running five times a week, eating better and getting a full night's sleep.
Even though smoking hurts cardiovascular endurance, a person can run faster while smoking because of positive things he is doing to offset negative factors.
In the same way, a high-tax state's economy can grow faster than a low-tax state if other factors offset the negative impact of high taxes.
So, let's go back to taxes. If every other factor were equal, would a business want to be in low-tax or high-tax state? The answer is obvious: the low-tax state. It's even true for many liberals who call for higher taxes and then exploit tax loopholes to avoid paying taxes themselves.
So are California and Nevada the same in every aspect but tax rates? Hardly.
|
California |
Nevada |
|
|
37.7 million |
Population |
2.7 million |
|
45% |
Government |
85% |
|
Usually |
Weather |
115 degrees |
|
840 |
Miles of coastline |
0 |
|
Numerous |
Established industries |
Gaming, Mining |
|
48th |
8th grade NAEP |
47th |
|
Higher than NV |
Taxes |
Lower than CA |
These are only seven of the thousands of areas where California and Nevada differ substantially.
The question policymakers should be asking is, "Why would anyone want to leave a state with amazing weather, hundreds of miles of beaches, and a huge economy?”
For many, like Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, the answer is high taxes.
Why would anyone want to implement the very thing — higher taxes — that is driving individuals from a state with great weather and other significant natural advantages, especially when Southern Nevada is in the middle of the desert?
CCSD admits governor's proposed spending increase will just enshrine the status quo
One of the big themes of Gov. Brian Sandoval's state of the state speech was that he wanted Nevada to spend more on education. In his budget, Sandoval proposes spending $135 million more on education in the next biennium.
One of the big themes of NPRI's work has been to demonstrate, again and again, that Nevada has tried to increase educational results by spending more but that pouring money into a broken system has failed miserably. Also, there is little to no correlation between spending and student achievement.
An article in today's Review-Journal shows exactly why blindly spending more only entrenches the status quo.
Even if the state approves a $135.8 million increase to education funding sought by Gov. Brian Sandoval, Clark County schools might remain just as crowded, with an average of 35 students per classroom in grades four to 12.
Under Sandoval's two-part plan, the majority of the money, $88.8 million, would be used to increase the state's basic funding to districts, which stands at $5,374 per student. That would be bumped to $5,697 by 2015, a 5.9 percent increase.
That probably would equate to $60 million more for the Clark County School District. ...
The district, in contract talks with its four employee groups, isn't the only party with a say in how additional funds might be spent. Although some district unions in the past have agreed to pay freezes to keep costs down for the cash-strapped school system, there is no guarantee that will continue.
"With the wave of an arbitrator's pen, that money could go elsewhere," said Fulkerson, referring to possible pay raises for 17,000 teachers, the district's largest employee group, a matter that is in arbitration.
If the arbitrator, an objective third party, upholds teacher salary increases, it would cost an extra $50 million, Fulkerson estimated.
CCSD officials need to aggressively point out how broken Nevada's binding arbitration system is in order to push change at the legislature. Let's hope Fulkerson's pointing this out is the first step of many the district takes to highlight that salary decisions shouldn't be made by an unelected, unaccountable lawyer from California.
Otherwise, Nevada will end up with yet another example of how spending more only enshrines the broken status quo, and our students will continue to suffer in failing schools — their opportunity for a quality education slipping away as Nevada's politicians try something we already know will only continue the status quo.
***Two additional notes on this topic.
First, CCSD's class size number is garbage. There are around 311,000 students in CCSD and 17,000 teachers. That's 18.3 students per teacher. If average class sizes are really that large — and I'm not convinced they are — then CCSD is choosing to taking thousands and thousands of teachers out of the classroom. That's a management issue that money won't fix.
Second, it'll be interesting to see Superintendent James Guthrie's comments during the next few months. For now, he's praising Sandoval for spending more.
Success won't be apparent for four or five years should gains in student achievement be realized, said Guthrie, praising Sandoval for the 5.8 percent increase to education funding, which critics say is not enough.
"I believe our posture should be thank you," said Guthrie, noting that education is up for more of a funding increase than any other activity in the state.
As a scholar, Guthrie noted that education funding is a "phony crisis" and "[s]chools have been riding a century-long wave of rising revenues." I know when you work for a governor, you have to support him, but I hope Guthrie is able to use his bully pulpit to explode the myth that pouring money into a broken system is going to produce results.
Otherwise, Nevada will keep pouring money into a broken system and every two years our politicians will announce they have a plan to solve our education problems ... by pouring more money into a broken system. After all, that's what they've been doing for 50 years.
New
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. Just enter your email in the box next to the testimonial.
New
You know the excitement you feel when you buy something new? A new suit, new shoes, new sporting equipment? That’s the feeling I’ve had this week when I visit NPRI’s homepage, http://npri.org.
That’s because on Monday, we unveiled a completely redesigned site that is much sharper and easier to navigate while offering a host of new features we’ve wanted over the past few years.
Want to share NPRI’s research and analysis on Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest? Now it’s as easy as clicking a button.
Want to comment on an NPRI article? You can do that now.
Want to see all of our research on education or public debt? Now our research is grouped by categories like taxes and transparency. This makes it much easier to find everything we’ve written on the subject you care about.
The ability to search the site is also much, much improved. I know our staff is thrilled about that in particular.
One of my favorite features is right under the main section. It features quotes from individuals like former president George W. Bush, former U.S. attorney general Ed Meese and Congressman Joe Heck praising the work of NPRI. That section changes every time the page loads, so refresh the page if you want to see all the quotes.
Those quotes speak highly of NPRI, but I hope you take pride in them as well, because every success we have is a result of your generous support and your willingness to share our research with friends, colleagues and lawmakers.
Head over to http://npri.org and click around. Please let me know what you think about the site and if there are any changes you’d like to see.
Take care,
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
Remember, if you'd like to receive the latest from NPRI, sign-up for our emails here.
Remembering Rose Moore
Over the weekend the valley lost a staunch advocate for children — to many a good friend. Rose Moore was well known in the CCSD education arena for her determination and fight. She believed wholeheartedly in helping students and holding the school district accountable. So, that’s what she did…and did it well. While her methods and perseverance may have caused a few administrators to yank out a lock or two of their own hair, every CCSD person I’ve spoken with in the last few days had the same, kind remembrances — “Rose was committed to her causes and she will be missed.” Knowing Rose, there could be no better eulogy.
From Rose’s early days as a special education advocate to her recent bid for school board — and all the miles in-between — I have had the pleasure, support, fun and adventure of calling Rose a friend. I will sorely miss her.
Funeral services
Monday, January 21, 2013
Open casket viewing from 9:00 am to 11:00 am
Closed casket Mass beginning at 11:00 am followed by a buffet gathering
St. John Newman Catholic Church
2575 West El Campo Grande Ave, North Las Vegas
The family request donations in lieu of flowers which will be used for the funeral expenses.
Remember......whatever we do, we do it for the kids.
--Rose Moore
Coming soon
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. Just enter your email in the box next to the testimonial.
Coming soon
Is Nevada one of the most business-friendly states in the country?
Is Nevada a low-tax state?
Does Nevada exemplify what a free market looks like?
Many people think the answer to each of those questions is yes, but they're wrong.
Governments in Nevada put numerous barriers in front of aspiring entrepreneurs. Nevada's level of tax collections per capita is near the national median. Excessive taxation, regulation and licensing requirements are just some of the means by which government, at the state and local levels, prevents us from benefiting from a truly free economy.
Those are just some of the findings of an economic development study that NPRI will release next Tuesday. This study is so timely, given Nevada's economic challenges, that we decided to have some fun and do a teaser trailer for it. I wanted to share it with you.
That video features several business owners who have been kind enough to share their stories with NPRI, and you'll be learning more about the barriers they face in the upcoming weeks.
If you are a business owner or employee who has first-hand experience with how government prevents you from serving your customers, and if you're willing to share your story, would you please email me?
Providing facts and figures is valuable, but we also want to be able to personalize our research by sharing stories of how government overreach harms individuals. If you're willing to share your story, please email me, and we'll be in touch.
Be sure to check out npri.org on Tuesday to read the full study, and let me know what you think.
Until next time,
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
Remember, if you'd like to receive the latest from NPRI, sign-up for our emails here. Just enter your email in the box next to the testimonial.
Coming Tuesday: The Pathway to Sustainable Prosperity
Next Tuesday, NPRI is releasing a study on economic development. The study is so good we decided to have some fun and make a trailer for it. Enjoy.
Be sure to visit npri.org next Tuesday to read the full study.
