Budget
The broad-based tax fantasy
Diverse tax codes double likelihood of budget shortfall
The Las Vegas Sun this week highlighted on its front page a recent article from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a left-of-center think tank in Washington, D.C. A March 13 report from the CBPP says Nevada's budget gap for 2010 is 30 percent, the highest in the nation. Not surprisingly, some have taken this to mean that Nevada needs to expand and diversify its tax base. Not so fast.
NPRI's Transparency Project on the LVCVA: Apr. 9, 2009 update
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority will gather Tuesday to hear the marketing and lobbying firm R&R Partners explain why it believes its expiring $92 million-a-year advertising contract should be extended.
Forcing you to buy what you don’t want
Governor pushes for higher, hidden energy tax
Gov. Gibbons went before the Senate Committee on Energy, Infrastructure and Transportation on Tuesday to testify on behalf of his administration's bill, SB 395. The bill would, among other things, expand the scope of renewable-energy projects within the state that qualify for tax abatements.
Government failure
Higher tax rates correlate with deteriorating government services
Advocates for big government often try to justify themselves by declaring they're simply trying to cope with instances of "market failure." Thus they rationalize government displacing the free exchange of goods and services between individuals and sabotaging the livelihood and freedom of those individuals.
Smokes and booze for the children
Lawmakers want to make Nevada more dependent on “sins”
Policymakers in Nevada think they have found a taxation scheme analogous to the Keynesian principle of spending — one that encourages a lack of restraint by taxpayers as they pursue their carnal desires.
Enabling Nevada’s boom-bust cycle
Speaker Buckley decries, then exacerbates, the problem
Speaker Buckley has talked for months about how Nevada's government suffers from a boom-bust cycle. She says the boom-bust cycle is caused by flaws in Nevada's tax structure. Since 43 other states are facing budget deficits this biennium, however, the more likely cause is Nevada politicians' unquenchable thirst for increasing government spending at a rate that exceeds the growth of population and inflation.
Spending for spending’s sake
Simply throwing money at education is not the solution
Many believe that increasing per-pupil spending will improve education in Nevada and that Nevada spending per student ranks only 43rd in the nation. These individuals further assume that our public schools' low achievement and ostensibly low spending must be linked.
Setting up the 2011 spending spree
New taxes in 2009 will lead to new programs for 2011
Despite the ravages of recession, Carson City appears to be exuding an air of optimism. The big buzz around the legislature concerns the potential new taxes on Nevadans and all the new government programs those new taxes will allow lawmakers to create, assuming an eventual economic recovery.
Hammer therapy
The room tax hike will cause nothing but headaches
"Wow! Did you see these numbers? Tourist visitation to Southern Nevada over the last year is down huge amounts, and the collapse is accelerating! The entire state economy is really at risk!" "Yes, it's awful. Luckily I'm in the Nevada Legislature, and we lawmakers have taken bold and decisive action." "What did you do?"
Handicapping the debate
Manufacturing a budget crisis
Gov. Jim Gibbons either surrounded himself with people giving him bad advice or he never intended to seriously fight tax increases—or both. If your goal is to fight tax increases, you don't frame the debate by starting with highly bloated budget estimates while calling insufficient revenues to meet those estimates a "crisis."
