Andy Matthews
President
Andy Matthews is the president of NPRI and has been with the Institute since February 2007. Andy is the fourth president in NPRI's history. He joined NPRI in February 2007 as its communications director and became a vice president at the Institute in 2008.
Recent Work
Hillsdale College comes to NPRI
I’ve always been a big fan of Hillsdale College.
The school’s core curriculum alone is enough reason to warrant admiration, with its grounding in Western culture and tradition and its focus on the principles of the American founding.
Beyond that, there’s the fact that Hillsdale doesn’t accept a single penny in government funding. Lots of institutions around the country can say the same — including NPRI — but that Hillsdale can say it makes the school unique among American colleges.
And finally, there’s a reason that’s a bit closer to home: Three members of our staff here at NPRI — Victor Joecks, Jared Carl and Tyler Walton — are Hillsdale graduates, and we’ve been well served by all of them.
The union crack-up continues
A bit over a month ago, I used this space to highlight a wonderfully ironic development in the still-unfolding Obamacare saga: the defection of Teamsters chief James Hoffa and other national labor-union leaders from the ranks of the health-care law’s supporters.
At the time, I was careful to temper my enthusiasm. The about-face from Hoffa, et al., was most welcome, but it hardly represented some fundamental ideological shift on the part of Big Labor. It was simply a case of looking out for one’s own.
That said, something peculiar does seem to be going on in Unionland these days.
Onward
I still remember something Joe Becker said to me nearly three years ago. We’d just officially launched the Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation here at NPRI and hired Joe as the Center’s director, and he was perfectly frank about what it was we were getting into.
“Beating the government,” Joe told me, “is hard.”
Is it ever.
I'm going to jail
As the president of a non-profit, I know what it’s like to rely on the generosity and support of others to be able to carry out the organization’s mission. And I can’t say enough about how much I appreciate your support for the Nevada Policy Research Institute and our efforts to make the Silver State a freer and better place to live.
As much as I believe in NPRI’s mission, however, I always keep in mind that there are so many other causes that are worthy of support. Of course, not all of them have to do with public policy. But it’s good to remember that there are lots of ways to help strengthen our community that go beyond tax rates and education reforms.
Questions and answers
The “more cops” tax debate is back in the news this week. The latest, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is that the Clark County Commission has opted to postpone its vote on whether to approve an increase in the county’s sales-tax rate, new revenues from which would go to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
