Geoffrey Lawrence
Rolling the Dice on the Taxpayers' Dime
Nevada's redevelopment agencies spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing private developers, which increases the tax burden on citizens and fosters corruption. There is a better way to encourage redevelopment.
Got despotism?
The City of Las Vegas’ redevelopment plan is being challenged by Culinary Local 226 in the upcoming June election. Culinary has secured enough signatures to place two initiatives on the ballot that would (1) require voter approval for individual lease-purchase agreements and (2) repeal the city’s current redevelopment plan. The City has proposed to issue general obligation bonds to finance, among other things, a new $267 million city hall. The project would burden local taxpayers with a significant amount of debt at a time when they can least afford it.
Artificially low tuition retards Nevada higher education
The state—to its detriment—boasts the country’s cheapest tuition
Governor Jim Gibbons' State of the State address and proposed budget provoked a great deal of ire from proponents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. The proposed budget would lower funding to the system by $473 million over the next two years. The cuts reportedly prompted NSHE Chancellor Jim Rogers to say, "I would blow my brains out if I thought this was going through." The Chancellor's suicidal tendencies aside, all the fulminations are largely unwarranted.
Consumer choice is better than government choice
Government regulators say, ‘Hello, dummy!’
Are you unable to rationally decide which businesses to patronize? That's what Silver State politicians and bureaucrats believe. Nevada state government currently regulates a broad spectrum of private industries—among others: real estate, insurance...
Welcome to the long run
Keynesian economics have been the downfall of American policymaking.
The American shift to Keynesianism began in the 1930s, and lawmakers based much of the New Deal on it. Keynesian economists advocate government manipulation of the market through monetary policy in order to "ensure" economic stability and full employment. Understanding the Keynesian mindset is essential to understanding current American policymaking.
NPRI's Recommendations for Cost-Cutting and Reform
In the face of today's fiscal challenges, Nevada policymakers must recognize the need to enact sweeping reforms that transform how state government conducts its business.
The untenable nature of NV state employee pay raises
The ongoing recession has drawn attention recently to the lavish pay raises enjoyed by Nevada's state government workers. However, what has been lost on many observers is that the pay structure for state workers suffers from a systemic problem. Pay raises for state workers are far out of line with what workers in the private sector earn even during periods of robust economic growth.
Why Nevada's cost of government is high
Delineating the tax burden
While public discourse in Nevada has recently focused on whether the state should increase taxes, little attention has been paid to the high cost that Nevadans are already paying to finance state and local governments. Although the state's general fund revenues have captured the attention of the media in recent weeks due to the "imaginary shortfall," Nevadans are also burdened by many other forms of state and local taxes.
Calls for tax hikes rely on faulty data
Governments in Nevada still well funded
Big-government advocates are calling for massive tax hikes with increasing regularity in Nevada. These advocates claim that state government is grossly underfunded and, as a result, the legislature should force Nevadans to shoulder a heavier tax burden. However, such assertions rely on a thorough misunderstanding or misrepresentation of the facts.
Under-the-radar taxation
While recent attention has focused on the state's revenue shortfall and the related debate over whether to increase taxes, the fact that state lawmakers have already raised taxes has gone relatively unreported in the media.
