Budget
Heads in the sand
CCSD is once again ignoring a good idea.
Can the Clark County School District cut $63 million from its budget without touching classroom programs? Even if possible, would CCSD actually do it? It doesn't appear the district would even consider it.
Real solutions for higher education
Efficiency and innovation are what Nevada needs.
Jim Rogers – chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education – has been hitting the keyboard a lot lately, typing up legions of memos on Nevada's "broken" revenue structure, the need for new taxes, requests to borrow billions, and the necessity of increasing funding to education. Rogers has become bold enough to not just demand increased gaming and mining taxes but to demand an income tax as well.
Legislature addresses imaginary ‘shortfall'
Band-aids are applied to prop up high spending
As the debate over whether to increase taxes or scale back government spending rages on in Nevada, state lawmakers met this week to explore options for averting a supposed "shortfall" in the current biennial budget. All the while, legislators and media pundits decry the revisions being made in the budget and proclaim that tax rates must increase if the state is to provide an adequate level of services.
NPRI's Transparency Project on the LVCVA
The Nevada Policy Research Institute has made the issue of government transparency a top priority in 2008, as the issue has grown in prominence nationally and as the need for more transparency here Nevada has become clear.
Playing with fire
Getting burned by the firefighter union
Residents of Clark County who want to invest in the future of their children should take away their schoolbooks and buy them a box of matches. Why? Because in Clark County, knowledge of fire and fire suppression is apparently of more value than is knowledge in specialized academic fields such as law.
Mutually assured donations
Back-scratching abounds in Clark County education.
Why is the Clark County School District issuing checks for millions of dollars to Southern Nevada's powerful teacher union? According to purchase and change orders reviewed by the Nevada Policy Research Institute, within the last two years a total of $4.9 million has been approved by CCSD trustees for payment directly to the Clark County Education Association, or to a foundation controlled by the union.
Jobs for the sake of jobs
Failing businesses must be allowed to fail.
Ropchai Premsrirut, former assistant professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, explained recently in the Las Vegas Sun how he believes he is doing his part to prevent unemployment – namely, by not quickly ending the hemorrhaging of a money-losing restaurant he recently took over.
Old myths about the New Deal
We must reject the Hoover-Roosevelt approach to economic policy.
Las Vegas Sun publisher Brian Greenspun this week turned his normal column space over to a former assistant professor of economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Ropchai Premsrirut, who focused on creating jobs in a shrinking economy.
That old Trojan Horse
Calls for education spending hikes are based on dubious statistics.
Nevada faces a steadily worsening economy, thanks in no small part to poor federal regulatory policies that are driving up inflation and destroying the value of the American dollar. This problem exacerbates Nevada's already massive budgetary shortfall, which will continue to worsen as the dollar continues to weaken.
Corporate welfare, corruption and the ‘blight' of the poor
The case for reform of Nevada's redevelopment laws
The need for reform of property rights in Nevada is clear. Property rights that are defensible under the rule of law are the very foundation of a market economy. However, property rights in Nevada have eroded due to a set of community redevelopment laws that confer dangerous amounts of power upon local politicians.
