Doug French
Kids Can’t Read Because the State Can’t Calculate
What businessperson would ever continue to fund an investment that was not generating a positive return?
America's Serial Inflator
It’s official: The greatest inflator in history will be nominated for yet another term as chairman of the Federal Reserve. President George W. Bush, in a meeting with financial journalists, said, “I think Alan Greenspan should get another term.”
Oh Those 'Enormous and Unreasonable' Profits
Hardly a week goes by without one of the local newspapers printing a letter from some reader ranting that the big oil companies are “price gouging” consumers. It never fails: gasoline hits two bucks a gallon and here comes the outrage.
Galt's Gulch No More
The only gulch that people typically associate with Las Vegas is Glitter Gulch—that stretch of what was once Fremont Street (now a pedestrian mall) from Las Vegas Boulevard to Main Street.
What is Seen and Not Seen
The is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one,” wrote the great French economist Frederic Bastiat, “The bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.”
Still Plenty to Mismanage
The hue and cry is deafening from the pro-tax politicians and pundits. They claim legislators who oppose Kenny Guinn’s temporary tax increases in the face of a certain war with Iraq are somehow “craven.” But far from being cowardly, the Gang of 63 is showing some rare good sense.
A Nevada IRS?
Perhaps nowhere else in the country is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) hated as much as here in Nevada. Since the early 1980s the ubiquitous tax-gathering agency has been harassing casino dealers for a share of their tip money. Late last year four casino dealers, one a 64-year-old woman, were each sentenced to six months in prison for trying to keep some of their own money. How much loot did these big-time tax cheats keep out of the national treasury? As the Las Vegas Review Journal
reported, “[S]entencing the four to jail, [Judge] Hicks ordered restitution from each. The amounts ranged from $1,148 to $1,532.”The Unholy Alliance
With MGM Mirage Chairman Terry Lanni’s recent speech supporting higher taxes in Nevada, all of the usual suspects have now linked arms to back Governor Kenny Guinn’s quest for bigger state government.
Why Not a $1000-an-hour Minimum Wage?
Though Governor Kenny Guinn is proposing punitive tax increases that would destroy many jobs in Nevada, the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) isn’t satisfied. It wants the state to go even further and virtually abolish first jobs for many young Nevadans.
The Power to Destroy
In his famous McCulloch vs. Maryland decision, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall wrote, “The power to tax involves the power to destroy.” Today, over 180 years after those words were written, Governor Kenny Guinn stands ready to use the power of taxation to destroy thousands of Nevadans’ jobs and livelihoods. Guinn and his tax-increase panel believe that $1.1 billion (some days it’s more, some days it’s less) is needed to balance the state’s budget, while maintaining the existing level of state services.
