Steven Miller
Opportunity missed
Steven Horsford cannot stand up to the NSEA alone
Three months ago, the new majority leader of the Nevada Senate, Steven Horsford, seriously displeased the president of the Nevada State Education Association teacher union. Horsford did so by admitting, indirectly, the long and lethal hostility of that union to virtually each and every effort to reform Nevada public education. "It is about the future and the children who depend upon us in the classroom," said the young majority leader in a debate over the hotel-room-tax increase. "The children are more important to me than any teachers group, than any company who thinks they can decide tax policy."
The real crisis
Most families have sobered up, but the politicians are still on a bender
The news stories and the pundits today speak routinely of "crisis." Nearly always their topic is some facet of the worldwide financial meltdown. Remarkably, however, an even larger crisis faces the people of the U.S. and Nevada, and it, in many ways, is the cause of the world's financial pratfall. Yet, it is rarely acknowledged, if at all.
Obama’s multi-trillion-dollar cover-up
The return of prosperity for Nevada may await a national house-cleaning
Recovery for Nevada's economy — so dependent on recreational tourism — clearly requires a return of prosperity to the underlying American economy. Unfortunately, the policies embraced by the Obama administration are precisely those that will ensure a zombie U.S. economy for many years to come.
Legislature’s dirty little secret revealed
Backdoor spending is the norm
For decades here in Nevada, the caterwauling from tax-consumers and their political allies has been loud and constant: Silver State budgets, they wail, are much too tightfisted, "selfish" and "unprogressive." What they haven't been telling you, however, is about all of the spending state lawmakers have been perpetrating through the back door – after the biennial budgets are approved – in a practice that's been going on for at least 30 years.
Helicopter Ben hearts zombies
How to know when the economy is really coming back to life
How soon is the economy here in Nevada — or nationally — going to turn the corner, you ask? When can we expect the tourists and conventioneers to return in the numbers of just a few years ago? Will it be soon, or will it take years?
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?"
Lemmings in suits
The political class is running us over a cliff
Let's recall how Nevada got into this economic mess, OK? It was the loving gift of your federal government.
