Las Vegas firefighters are getting paid too much

This headline from the Review-Journal is all the proof you need — "15 Las Vegas firefighter openings draw hundreds of hopefuls."

In one day, 1,440 people applied to be a Las Vegas firefighter. Officials capped the number of applications they would accept at 1,500.

"We typically see about 1,800 applications in a regular year," city spokeswoman Diana Paul said. "We knew we'd have an overwhelming response."

Now, if this were a private business, such an overwhelming response would signal to the business' operators that they were offering a salary well above what the market requires.

In government, however, there are political, not market, forces at work. Firefighters are well-organized and politically powerful. They have used these political advantages to obtain salaries that are well above what someone would earn for a similar job in the private sector.

I don't begrudge anyone just because he makes a lot of money. What's upsetting here is that firefighters are using taxpayers' dollars to subsidize their artificially high wages.

The jobs are good ones in normal times, let alone in the middle of a recession. They pay well, come with a good health insurance plan, allow early retirement and don't require a college degree…

The annual salary for a Las Vegas firefighter starts at $49,947 and caps off at $77,602.

Once hired, the firefighters can retire earlier than other city workers and can increase their earnings by getting overtime, callback and longevity pay.

No doubt many factors go into choosing a career, but the financial benefits of firefighting are considerable and go well beyond annual salary.

For instance, more than 70 percent of Clark County firefighters earn over $100,000 a year, and 78 percent earn over 30,000 a year in benefits. I'd give you the data for Las Vegas firefighters, but the city isn't complying with Nevada's open-records laws.

How government creates the need for government programs: child-care edition

Over at the NPRI homepage, Steve Miller has written an excellent commentary detailing how some Nevada bureaucrats are trying to enact regulations that would increase the cost of child care.

The regulations have good intentions, but of course, so does the road to hell.

[T]he Bureau of Services for Child Care has been pressing, since 2004, to make all Nevada child-care centers replicate the upper-middle-class developmental model — even though staffing costs for child-care providers become significantly more expensive under that model.

Repeatedly, over recent years, it has been explained to Bureau of Services for Child Care officials that simply requiring licensed child-care providers to increase staffing to uneconomic levels would not make toddlers safer.

The reason is that Nevada's economically hard-pressed parents cannot afford the higher rates providers would have to charge to support the higher staff-to-child ratios and other personnel costs. Indeed, even without the new regulations the bureau is seeking to impose, parents are currently removing toddlers from licensed centers and increasingly placing them with unlicensed providers, older children or even alone, during the day.

Think about what's going to happen here if the bureaucrats get their way. These regulations would raise prices, which would force some low-income parents to withdraw their kids from daycare and leave them in less desirable circumstances.

Soon there will be talk of a child-care crisis — parents can't afford it, single moms can't look for work, Nevada's children are in danger! Some of the same bureaucrats that enacted the cost-raising regulations will probably petition the legislature to create a child-care handout. There will be tearful testimony before Assembly and Senate committees. More liberal organizations will bus in paid demonstrators demanding government solve this "crisis."

And, voila, legislators will create a taxpayer-funded, child-care handout to solve a "crisis" that government regulations created.

Hmmm, where else can we see the unintended consequences of government actions?

KDWN tomorrow

For anyone who's interested, I'll be on KDWN at about 8:30 tomorrow morning with Heidi Harris. We'll be talking about NPRI's legislative rankings. You can listen live online here.

Legislative Report Card Online

Among the many highlights at NPRI’s highly successful anniversary dinner last week, the Institute formally released a Review and Report Card of the 2009 Legislative Session. For those who were unable to keep up with the daily musings occurring in Carson City from February through June (as well as for those who did), the publication will serve as a handy reference. It recounts the events of the session while highlighting the major debates that occurred among and between specific legislators with regard to tax and spending issues.

In addition, the publication includes a grading of individual state legislators based on their voting records. The grading is based on the methodology used by the National Taxpayers Union for grading congressmen and is widely considered the “gold standard” for grading legislative performance according to taxpayer interests. It allows for votes to be weighted according to the proportional impact of all fiscally relevant bills and examines proposals for both new spending and new taxes to account for both sides of the ledger.

The report card reveals several underlying dynamics within the legislature. First, only 11 legislators received grades above 50 percent, meaning that they can be considered “friends” to the taxpayer. Topping the 52 legislators who received scores below 50 percent was Assemblywoman Melissa Woodbury, who received a score of 38.04 percent. The lowest score was achieved by Senator Bob Coffin at 16.43 percent. Despite these scores, legislators such as Assemblymen Ed Goedhart and Don Gustavson, who both scored in the mid-90s, demonstrated that, despite the current economic recession, it was possible to achieve very high scores.

The report card further reveals that the ideological divide among state legislators goes much deeper than simple party affiliation. For example, the party leadership for both Republicans and Democrats all scored under 50 percent, meaning they were generally adversaries to the taxpayer. In the Senate, Majority Leader Steven Horsford and Minority Leader Bill Raggio were virtually indistinguishable, receiving scores about 2 percentage points apart.

The report is available online as a PDF. In addition, a spreadsheet is available that indicates the specific bills included for the grading and the respective weights assigned to them.

Support for Obamacare continues to plummet

Rasmussen, today:

Just 41% of voters nationwide now favor the health care reform proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s down two points from a week ago and the lowest level of support yet measured.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% are opposed to the plan.

It’s not at all surprising that as Americans have learned more about the plan, they have come to like it less and less. There is, after all, plenty to dislike.

Talk on Nevada: Public vs. private school funding

Talk on Nevada interviews Patrick R. Gibbons, an education policy analyst with the Nevada Policy Research Institute, on the policy and on the Constitutional problems with the tax study. Patrick reveals that schools in Clark County receive more per pupil money than 85 percent of private schools.

For more, read Patrick's latest commentary, Money down the drain.

Thank you

To all of you who attended last night’s NPRI dinner, many thanks from all us at the Institute. Our success depends on the generosity of the freedom-loving Nevadans who support us, and we at NPRI are fortunate and grateful to have such loyal friends.

By the way, I thought I’d share this video with you. Those of you who attended and heard Karl Rove’s speech will remember his reference to this. For those who didn’t attend, well, you’ll get a kick out of it anyway.



Thanks again, and we’ll see you at next year’s dinner — and hopefully sooner.

Wow: Sun article shows the downside of government subsidies

Let's give credit where credit is due. The Sun has an excellent article today on why the first-time homeowner tax credit is good politics and terrible policy.

No doubt, a big tax break for first-time homebuyers is good politics.

The $8,000 tax credit, enacted this year when Congress passed the $800 billion stimulus program, helps families looking to buy a house for the first time, as well as real estate agents and developers, who are ailing in the face of the worst housing market since the Depression.

Nevada more than just about any other state could use help for its beleaguered construction industry; unemployment in construction in Clark County has climbed into the high 20s and could reach 50 percent this year, according to labor union officials.

So it’s not surprising that Nevada’s congressional delegation has signed on to a plan to extend the credit and even make it more generous.

“It’s working,” says Rep. Dina Titus, the 3rd District Democrat. “You can see the positive impact of it. It really is stimulating the economy, helping Realtors and developers and homebuilders and individual homebuyers.”

Although the politics are a surefire winner, especially here in Nevada, some economists across the political spectrum question whether the tax credit is good policy.

“It’s terrible policy,” says Mark Calabria of the libertarian Cato Institute.

“It’s awful policy,” says Andrew Jakabovics, associate director for housing and economics at the liberal Center for American Progress. “It’s incredibly expensive. It’s not well targeted.”

Home sales have risen dramatically in the past year, but most economists don’t attribute the increase to the tax credit. August single-family-home sales in Southern Nevada, for instance, hit 3,229, up more than 25 percent from a year earlier.

But economists attribute most of the rising sales to the plunge in prices, not the tax credit. The median sale price of single-family homes was off more than 35 percent from a year earlier.

“A heck of a lot of people would have bought the house anyway,” says Ted Gayer, an economist at the Brookings Institution.

According to an estimate by the National Association of Realtors, of the 2 million new homebuyers since the credit was instituted, 350,000 say they would not have bought a house without the tax break.

“We paid $8,000 to at least 1.5 million people to do something they were going to do anyway,” Jakabovics says.

The tax break, due to expire at the end of November, is on track to cost $15 billion, twice what Congress had planned. In other words, it will cost $43,000 for every new homebuyer who would not have bought a house without the tax break.

I might disagree with some of the article's later suggestions, but let's just enjoy this bout of economic clarity from an unexpected source while we can.

The biggest disappointment for those who care about limited government is that Nevada's entire Congressional delegation supports extending and expanding this government handout. Have they all missed the message of the Tea Parties? Most disappointing is Rep. Dean Heller, because we know he knows why this is a bad policy.

Government shouldn't pick the winners (first-time homeowners) and the losers (everyone else). Don't any of Nevada's elected officials know that demand for new cars plummeted after the Cash for Clunkers program ended?

Instead, they want another housing bubble for Nevada.

IFC tax study committee meeting wrap-up

If you were following this morning's live blog, you've already seen the money quote (pun intended).

10:18 A passing comment from Assemblymen Anderson reveals the true purpose of this study. "We don't have money. That's the reason we're doing the study."

As we've said before, legislators are going to use this tax study to justify raising your taxes. If it were truly about finding "recommendations to improve the stability of existing revenues and provid[ing] recommendations for new revenues that are designed to improve the stability of state and local government funding and are tied to the economic activity of the state," legislators would be requesting a revenue-neutral proposal.

The two main parts of the meeting focused on the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group (NVSG) and a review of Nevada's previous tax studies.

The proposed purpose of the NVSG is to come up with five-year, 10-year and 20-year strategic plans for improving Nevada's quality of life.

While no one is against a better quality of life, no one agrees on what that means. So the IFC is going to appoint individuals from five areas to define Nevada's quality-of-life goals.

Think about that for a second. Unelected individuals are going to define and determine what “quality of life means for you and me. This is impossible, because “quality of life” means entirely different things to different people. Individuals are unique and diverse. Some people value wealth; others value mobility, or family, or the outdoors or whatever. That's the beauty of freedom — individuals can pursue their own interests and do what gives their life meaning and value.

The role of government is to protect your rights of life, liberty and property, and in the case of state and local governments, to provide a few essential services like roads, education, police, fire and a health care safety net.

But that's not what's happening with the NVSG. The NVSG will be composed of individuals from commerce and industry, education, health and human services, public safety and infrastructure. All of those groups (when you consider regulations and special tax breaks for commerce and industry) stand to benefit directly from increasing taxes. Their quality of life goes up if they can take and control more of your money. Your quality of life will go down, of course, but you'll notice there are no spots on the NVSG for ordinary citizens or taxpayers.

Even Sen. Raggio was speaking up against this imbalance.

The review of Nevada's previous tax studies (available here) was fairly dry, but there was one nugget of insight. Legislative Counsel Bureau staff member Russ Guindon was discussing the previous studies and pointed out that previous recommendations needed to be examined in light of the direction the legislature gave the study. In other words, Legislatures would purchase the results they wanted the tax study to produce.

Hmmm. That sounds familiar.

Update: Thanks to Cranky Hermit for the link.

Live blog: IFC's tax study meeting

Updates after the jump. Scroll down for the latest...

As we promised last week, Geoff and I are attending the IFC's tax study meeting. And thanks to the Internet, you can follow along with this live blog and watch the meeting online here. Scroll down a bit and the tax study meeting is the first meeting listed at that link.

9:05 So far I've seen eight legislators here in the Las Vegas meeting. The other locations are online and we're waiting for the meeting to begin

9:06 And it begins. They have a quorum with some members en route.

9:10 At the last meeting, the committee put out a Request for Proposal (RFP). Advertised in several places. Companies that are interested in conducting the study asked 21 clarifying questions, which the legislative staff was required to respond to. I'll be referring to those questions and answers throughout this live blog.

9:13 Companies that want to conduct this tax study must submit bids by Oct. 1.

9:15 This isn't just a tax study. Sen. Horsford's talking about developing a plan for the state in the key quality-of-life areas — education, diversify economy, health. "What we as Nevadans want to see in our state." Why is this the government's job? Especially for unelected members of the "vision stakeholder" group.

9:20 Yep, the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group (NVSG) is just going to be used as a reason to raise taxes. Here's how the argument will go. "The NVSG says we should rank higher in education spending. The NVSG has studied Nevada's situation and set quality-of-life goals. Therefore we need to raise taxes to achieve this goal for Nevada." It'll be more nuanced than that, but that's going to be the argument for tax increases. And never mind that Nevada has increased inflation-adjusted, per-pupil, education spending by over 150 percent in the last 60 years, but results have been stagnant.

9:28 Proposed size of NVSG is 15 people. How can 15 people determine what quality of life looks like for 3 million people? Every individual is unique with his or her own goals and interests. This is why government's role is designed to be limited.

9:30 Sen. Kirkpatrick makes the argument I just wrote — How can 15 people represent a state as diverse as Nevada?

9:35 Horsford responds — we have eight or nine months to do this. Stakeholders will reach out. All meetings are public meetings. A starting document for a strategic vision plan.

Wow, so many cliches in so little time.

9:37 Assemblyman Anderson is also concerned that 15 isn't enough to include smaller groups.

9:45 NVSG members to be appointed in October.

9:55 Horsford: "There is a strategic element to what has to be done here."

9:59 Horsford's statement is a good reminder that these meetings are all part of a strategy. How can the legislature justify taking more of your money in 2011?

10:07 No reimbursement for travel or time. That cost will be shouldered by the organizations who nominated them. As Sen. Matthews is saying this limits the members of the NVSG to those who can afford the expense.

10:09 Horsford: We have no money for time or travel. We are using contingency funds for the consultant.

Don't forget this when legislators say there's no fat left in the budget. Lawmakers "found" the $500,000 for this study after the governor vetoed the original funding.

10:18 A passing comment from Assemblymen Anderson reveals the true purpose of this study. "We don't have money. That's the reason we're doing the study."

10:24 From the Draft proposal for getting members of the NVSG:

"The members of the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group will be selected from a list of names submitted by community and statewide interested parties involved in the areas of commerce and industry, education, health and human services, public safety, and infrastructure."

10:25 Think about that. Five groups that will be charged with improving Nevada's quality of life and four groups are financially vested in receiving state money. Hmmm, I wonder if groups that benefit directly from government largess will want more or less of your money?

10:36 Discussing the RFP and selecting a consultant. Sen. Horsford asks Sen. Raggio to chair a working group on proposals.

10:38 A review of Nevada tax studies after a five-minute break. We may be out by noon.

10:55 Somewhat ironic to be reviewing Nevada's past tax studies at a meeting commissioning another tax study. Why do we need another study? To use it as political cover to try and justify another tax increase in 2011.

10:58 Legislative staff (Russ Guindon) just admitted that, in previous tax studies, the legislature basically purchased the results it wanted. For instance, the 1966 tax study gave priority "to additional gaming taxes and the economic positions of gaming."

11:08 Past tax studies are available here. Look under Studies Required by Legislation in the right column.

11:12 Most hopeful thing about this tax study meeting: This review of previous tax studies that have failed to raise taxes.

11:13 Next meeting will probably be at the end of October. Only thing left is public comment. 15-20 people here in Vegas. I suspect there will be a few public comments. Could be quite interesting.

11:20 Sen. Horsford will appoint working group members (for selecting the NVSG members and for selecting who will do the tax study) by Wednesday.

11:35 With three public comments, two from Geoff and myself (his being much more substantial than mine), the meeting is adjourned.

A more detailed wrap-up and thoughts this afternoon.

NOTE: This post was edited after the meeting for clarity.

Then and now: Speaker Buckley on stimulus funding

Don't like what I'm saying? Not to worry.
Wait six months and I'll contradict myself.

In March of 2009, Gov. Gibbons was considering declining some of the stimulus funds. Those funds would have created an unemployment program that wouldn't sunset when the money ran out.

At the time, Speaker Buckley railed against Gibbons' indecision.

"Why wouldn't we want to get $77 million if it pays for itself for years, it gets the stimulus in the economy and we get relief for the unemployed?" Buckley asked last Wednesday.

Gibbons caved and accepted the funds. And no doubt we will be paying for this in a few years.

Fast forward to today's Review-Journal and this comment from Speaker Buckley on Gibbons' spending of the stimulus money.

[Speaker Buckley] noted that hiring the new employees will cause problems for the Legislature in 2011, since the stimulus funds will run out and there may be no money to continue their jobs.

Exactly. So why did you, Speaker Buckley, lead the effort to take the unemployment stimulus dollars, which will cause the exact same problem?

Speaker Buckley has a history of contradictions. In 2008 she spent months touring the state touting transparency and the need to eliminate Nevada's boom-bust tax cycle. Once she got to Carson City, though, it was all secret meetings about raising taxes.

Join us as we live blog Monday's tax study meeting

The push to raise taxes in 2011 has already started, and NPRI is going to be there to give you the facts every step of the way.

On Monday, Geoffrey Lawrence and I are going to be live blogging the meeting of the subcommittee that will conduct a review of Nevada's revenue structure — that's legislative speak for "subcommittee to try and figure out the best way to raise your taxes." The meeting starts at 9 a.m., and since it's a government meeting it could go all day. But we'll be sticking it out to the very end so you can have real-time analysis of what's actually happening.

The meeting is also going to be streamed live here. If that link doesn't work, go the Nevada Legislature's schedule-of-meetings page and find the subcommittee meeting. Since it's a committee meeting, it's also open to the public. The meeting is being held in the Grant Sawyer Building in Las Vegas, but it will also be attended via simultaneous videoconferencing in Carson City and Elko. Go here to find the physical addresses. If you have the time and the patience for committee meetings, you can even give public comment at the end.

In preparation for Monday and the tax study meeting, let's set the stage for how the tax study will be used to raise your taxes in 2011.

This Ralston headline says it best: The road to any tax increase is paved with tax studies.

Geoff goes into more detail.

The motivations for this highly questionable maneuvering by Interim Finance Committee members becomes clear when one considers the scope of work they would like to see included in the study. This is no simple academic exercise meant to provide suggestions for "stabilizing" tax revenues.

According to the relevant Senate Concurrent Resolution, a central purpose of the proposed study is to "review proposals for broad-based taxes." There should be little confusion about what "broad-based taxes" are to be considered. Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, who is both an influential member of the Interim Finance Committee and an advocate for the interim tax study, sponsored legislation in the same session that would have explicitly required the imposition of a corporate net profits tax. According to the bill's language:

A corporate net profits tax or any alternative tax, such as a business transaction tax or any other alternative for the generation of revenue should be evaluated for viability and implemented only after determining the manner in which such a tax can be most effectively levied.

The bill further cites the Silver State's lack of a corporate income tax as a reason to examine that tax specifically.

Thus, any pretense that the purpose of the Interim Finance Committee's tax study is to address volatility in the state tax structure in order to "stabilize" tax revenues should be dismissed out of hand. Numerous studies have shown the corporate income tax to be the single most volatile revenue source for state governments in the nation. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the corporate income tax is more than twice as volatile as the general sales tax. This is because corporate profits are extremely sensitive to economic recession.

The overall volatility of a state tax structure is not improved by adding a new tax that is even more volatile than the existing tax base. This is intuitive for anyone who understands averages or has a modicum of common sense.

Suggestions from legislative leadership that Nevada must "broaden and diversify its revenue base" with new tax instruments are — if made in good faith — naïvely assuming that tax revenues operate in the same manner as personal investment portfolios. While returns on personal investments vary depending on the profitability of individual firms, and while personal wealth can be safer in a diversified portfolio of investments, all tax revenues are directly proportional to economic growth rates. Attempting to "diversify" Nevada's tax structure by creating new tax instruments would be like attempting to mitigate investment risks by doubling down one's investment in the same, original securities.

Clearly, the purpose of any study to come out of the Interim Finance Committee is simply to provide a flimsy, see-through rationale for yet another Silver State tax grab. That tax grab is being plotted against businesses and Nevadans who are already struggling. And it would inevitably exacerbate the state's growing unemployment problem — even if it enriches individual legislators and their rent-seeking constituencies.

The price of liberty and lower taxes is eternal vigilance. Join us here on Monday.

Talk on Nevada: How legislators are using a tax study to try and raise your taxes in 2011

Next Monday, a subcommittee of the Interim Finance Committee will meet to work on a tax study that legislators will use in 2011 to try to raise your taxes. Talk on Nevada interviews Geoffrey Lawrence, a fiscal policy analyst with the Nevada Policy Research Institute, on the policy and on the Constitutional problems with the tax study.

For more, read Geoffrey's latest commentary, Nevadans deserve honesty from the IFC.

The country road to serfdom

West Virginia, not unlike Nevada, relied on one major industry for economic prosperity – mining. Fortunately for Nevada a very free economy and unobtrusive government allowed the state to expand into gambling and entertainment. The result for Nevada has been to hold one of the highest per-capita incomes and lowest poverty rates in the nation.

Unfortunately for West Virginia, its economic climate wasn’t friendly enough to expand and diversify the economy. High taxes in West Virginia force many wealth-producing companies to relocate along the border in lower-tax states. This means few jobs and low incomes thanks to politicians believing they know better than everyone else.

But tourism, like mining, is a captive industry, and that makes politicians keen to raising taxes (it is no accident that tourism-dependent economies end up with high taxes, lots of government intrusion and fairly poor economies in the long run). With a 20 percent tax hike already passed in Nevada and talk of more taxes on the way (from both Republicans and Democrats) one might wonder if Nevada is planning on becoming the next West Virginia – or worse, California.

White House: Cap and trade could cost average family over $1,760 a year

Via CBS:

The Obama administration has privately concluded that a cap and trade law would cost American taxpayers up to $200 billion a year, the equivalent of hiking personal income taxes by about 15 percent.

A previously unreleased analysis prepared by the U.S. Department of Treasury says the total in new taxes would be between $100 billion to $200 billion a year. At the upper end of the administration's estimate, the cost per American household would be an extra $1,761 a year.

A second memorandum, which was prepared for Obama's transition team after the November election, says this about climate change policies: "Economic costs will likely be on the order of 1 percent of GDP, making them equal in scale to all existing environmental regulation."

The key part is at the very beginning. "The Obama administration has privately concluded …" In June, the CBO released an incomplete study, which proponents used to claim cap and trade would only cost families $175 a year.

When did the Obama administration know the true cost? Before Obama was even in the White House.

Hey, at least government officials are telling each other the truth.

(h/t Hotair)

Another reminder of why you can't trust Nevada's politicians

Although to be fair, you really can't trust politicians anywhere.

Chuck Muth's compiled a long list of Nevada's politicians who promised not to raise taxes while they were campaigning in 2008. Turns out, they lied. And now you're paying for it.

* When asked about taxes by a voter during his primary campaign, Sen. Bill Raggio declared, “Well, I’m not going to raise taxes, I can guarantee you that.” He then proceeded to vote for over a billion dollars worth of higher taxes.

* Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford said, Raggio-like, “I won’t vote for tax increases next session – not when the private sector is losing revenue and losing jobs.” Despite the private sector continuing to lose revenue and lose jobs, Horsford then proceeded to not only shove a billion dollars worth of higher taxes down our throats, he continued to push for a new business-killing corporate income tax.

* Assemblywoman April Mastroluca said, “I can’t see the people of Nevada being able to afford tax increases.” She then proceeded to vote for over a billion dollars worth of higher taxes on the people of Nevada.

* Sen. Allison Copening said, “I’m not an advocate of taxation in this climate.” Despite the fact that the economic “climate” only got worse by the time she was sworn in, Sen. Copening went on to vote for over a billion dollars worth of higher taxes.

* “There’s no appetite for new taxes,” said Assemblyman Paul Aizley, before chowing down on over a billion dollars worth of higher taxes.

* “I really have no appetite for raising taxes,” Assemblywoman Marilyn Dondero Loop said, before coming down with a major case of the “munchies” and voting for over a billion dollars worth of higher taxes.

There's plenty more, too.

Or if you don't like calling our legislators liars, you could always refer to them as a "collection of irredeemable nincompoops, borderline criminals and self-interested cowards," as Jon Ralston did.

Just something to keep in mind as a subcommittee of the Interim Finance Committee meets on Monday to discuss the tax study Nevada's politicians are going to use to try to raise your taxes (again!) in 2011.

Of course: Henderson firefighters set to get pay hike under new deal

As taxpayers in the private sector — who will foot the bill for these raises — face job cuts and/or pay cuts, firefighters continue to take more and more. Even more than members of the other public employee unions.

From the Sun:

The Henderson City Council is scheduled to approve a new labor deal tonight with its firefighters’ union, the last of the city’s six collective bargaining units to renegotiate its agreement as part of Henderson’s budget-cutting efforts...

Unlike the unions representing Henderson Police Officers, Police Supervisors, and three Teamsters unions representing various other employees, however, Henderson firefighters will still be receiving pay increases.

Henderson’s other five unions have all agreed to forgo annual pay increases altogether for the current fiscal year, which began July 1 and ends June 30.

It's not just the Henderson firefighters, either. Clark County firefighters make an average of over 40 percent more than firefighters in New York City and 70 percent make over $100,000 a year.

If you want to find out exactly how much firefighters in Henderson are making, head over to TransparentNevada.com. We've collected the salary data on all Henderson employees. Taxpayers who pay the bill have the right to see how much firefighters are making.

9/12 Rally wrap-up

Over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Washington, D.C., to protest the growth of government into seemingly every aspect of our lives.

This isn't a complete synopsis of the rally, just a few pictures and videos that I really enjoyed when I was reading about it. Head over to Daily Uprising for an avalanche of links related to the rally if this isn't enough.

Via Libertarian Popinjay: The Best Tea Party Sign Ever.

Reason TV went to DC to find out if Tea Party participants were radicals or normal Americans.



My favorite photo.

From Big Hollywood, a look at the Tea Party in L.A.



Via Cranky Hermit: The consensus choice for best czars ever.

CCSD still rewarding mediocrity

Last week the Clark County School District’s board of trustees voted to extend the teacher contract by one year. The contract continues to pay teachers based on longevity and their number of degrees — rather than on the quality of teaching delivered.

During the 08-09 school year, earning a Master’s degree netted a teacher an additional $5,655 a year. Unfortunately, earning a Master’s degree does not improve the teacher’s quality, and that means millions of dollars wasted.

Eric Hanushek, of Stanford University, and Steven Rivkin, writing in the 2006 edition of the Handbook on the Economics of Education, cite the “most ... remarkable ... finding” from numerous studies “that a master’s degree has no systematic relationship to teacher quality as measured by student outcomes” (page 11 of the article, “Teacher Quality“). Advanced degrees are not likely to increase the quality of the teaching and, more importantly, there is no evidence that they increase student achievement.

Teachers in Clark County also received an additional $1,465 for each additional year worked. But teacher quality does not improve after the first few years. Essentially, longevity pay ends up rewarding mediocrity, as teachers receive little to no reward for the effectiveness of their teaching.

A merit-pay system based on value-added assessment (testing to see the gains an individual student makes from year to year) would be a far better system. Teachers would be rewarded based on the effectiveness of their teaching, providing a strong incentive for improving their teaching skills. High-quality teachers would receive top tier pay while poor teachers would be shown the door.

Dr. Matthew Ladner, a policy fellow with the Nevada Policy Research Institute and vice president for research at Arizona’s Goldwater Institute, recently highlighted several methods that could result in high-quality teachers earning more than $100,000 a year for their efforts.

Perhaps the board of trustees hasn’t kept up with the research on teacher pay and teacher quality. Or perhaps they simply don’t care. Either way, teacher pay in Nevada continues to reward mediocrity.

In this way, Nevada school boards — crying poverty all the while — waste millions of dollars that could be used more productively elsewhere.

Even worse, however, is the needless waste, for hundreds of thousands of Nevada youth, of what these students could potentially achieve.

All you need to know about the public plan in two pictures

Both from Michael Ramirez, my favorite political cartoonist.




And yep, Congress has already voted against putting itself on the public plan.

9/11: Never forget, never again

The 2,996 victims of 9/11 terror attacks.

Many thanks to everyone who has and is serving our country in uniform.

For more, visit Project 2,996, which commemorates the victims of 9/11, or watch this moving tribute video at Daily Uprising.

Mike Strembitsky talks about empowerment schools

Part 1


Part 2

The Business Educational Alliance for the Children of Nevada (BEACON) is a private group of concerned business leaders in Nevada advocating for education reform. Their primary focus for reform has been on Clark County School District’s empowerment school model.

Empowerment schools offer schools autonomy over their budgets in exchange for becoming accountable for results. Watch the excellent presentation by Mike Strembitsky, a hog farmer from Canada who became a school district superintendent and reinvented public education as we know it. The video is just under 15 minutes long.

Talk on Nevada: Taxes trump transparency

This week Talk on Nevada interviews Victor Joecks, the deputy communications director at the Nevada Policy Research Institute, on how Nevada's politicians prefer tax increases to transparency.

All right, that's enough talking about myself in the third person for one day. It just felt weird to write "...interviews me." But I digress.

Check out the commentary I referred to in the interview, "Taxes trump transparency". It's amazing how blatantly Nevada's politicians are ignoring the transparency issue and then doing everything they can to increase our taxes.

If you want to find out more about transparency, check out TransparentNevada.com, which has searchable databases containing information on government employees' salaries and a blog dealing with transparency in Nevada and around the country.

Assessing Obama's speech to schoolkids

Obama’s speech to schoolkids promoted outrage and concern among parents and pundits. Unfortunately, the political left ignored some very reasonable arguments and focused on the more extreme positions. Even though the president’s speech may appear harmless, scholars at the Cato Institute point out some of the rational concerns with the speech in the video above (about six minutes).

Must read: Friedman hearts one-party autocracy, Goldberg's devastating response

Here is as clear a distinction between left and right political philosophies as you will ever find.

On Tuesday, Thomas Friedman wrote this in the New York Times.

Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.

One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.

Unbelievable. One-party autocracy "can have great advantages." Like forcing women to have abortions and executing prisoners for their organs. Politically difficult decisions to be sure, but thank goodness China has an autocracy in place that can move these critically important policies forward.

All right, that's enough of my poor impersonation of Jonah Goldberg. Read Goldberg's post in response to Friedman's column. "Thomas Friedman is a Liberal Fascist" is a must, must read.

So there you have it. If only America could drop its inefficient and antiquated system, designed in the age before globalization and modernity and, most damning of all, before the lantern of Thomas Friedman's intellect illuminated the land. If only enlightened experts could do the hard and necessary things that the new age requires, if only we could rely on these planners to set the ship of state right. Now, of course, there are "drawbacks" to such a system: crushing of dissidents with tanks, state control of reproduction, government control of the press and the internet. Omelets and broken eggs, as they say. More to the point, Friedman insists, these "drawbacks" pale in comparison to the system we have today here in America.

I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it's the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn't picky in this regard). This is the argument for an "economic dictatorship" pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It's the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.

I have no idea why I still have the capacity to be shocked by such things.

Read the whole thing, because Goldberg's response is brilliant. And for more, check out the Corner, where they are ripping Friedman to shreds.

Tonight at 9: Watch NPRI's reaction to Obama's health care speech

President Obama's 29th speech devoted solely to health care is tonight at 5 PM Pacific time.

And after President Obama's done contradicting himself — our current system isn't sustainable, but if you like your current plan you can keep it — watch Andy Matthews, NPRI's Vice President of Communications, give his take on the speech and the health care debate on Las Vegas One. Andy will be on around 9 PM tonight.

And if you want something to spice up the speech as you watch it live, try playing Obama health care speech bingo via Jim Geraghty or following CATO's live blog.

'Doctors told me it was against the rules to save my premature baby'

From the UK:

Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday.

Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early.

They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment.

Miss Capewell, 23, said doctors refused to even see her son Jayden, who lived for almost two hours without any medical support.

She said he was breathing unaided, had a strong heartbeat and was even moving his arms and legs, but medics refused to admit him to a special care baby unit.

And was there a chance to stop her labor? Not with the UK's rules.

She said she was told that because she had not reached 22 weeks, she was not allowed injections to try to stop the labour, or a steroid injection to help to strengthen her baby's lungs.

And how do they justify this policy?

Experts on medical ethics advised doctors not to resuscitate babies born before 23 weeks in the womb, stating that it was not in the child's 'best interests'…

Medical intervention would be given for a child born between 22 and 23 weeks only if the parents requested it and only after discussion about likely outcomes.

Under socialized medicine, what is in your "best interests" is determined by government bureaucrats.

Doctor: Let's regulate lawyers in the same way Obama wants to regulate us

Right now lawyers want to regulate and control doctors and the health care industry. Dr. Richard B. Rafal turns that concept on its head in a brilliant piece of satire, by proposing that doctors rewrite the rules for lawyers.

Since most of what lawyers do is repetitive boilerplate or pushing paper, physicians would have no problem dictating what is appropriate for attorneys. We physicians know much more about legal practice than lawyers do about medicine.

Following are highlights of a proposed bill authorizing the dismantling of the current framework of law practice and instituting socialized legal care:

• Contingency fees will be discouraged, and eventually outlawed, over a five-year period. This will put legal rewards back into the pockets of the deserving—the public and the aggrieved parties. Slick lawyers taking their "cut" smacks of a bookie operation. Attorneys will be permitted to keep up to 3% in contingency cases, the remainder going into a pool for poor people.

• Legal "DRGs." Each potential legal situation will be assigned a relative value, and charges limited to this amount. Program participation and acceptance of this amount is mandatory, regardless of the number of hours spent on the matter. Government schedules of flat fees for each service, analogous to medicine's Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs), will be issued. For example, any divorce will have a set fee of, say, $1,000, regardless of its simplicity or complexity. This will eliminate shady hourly billing. Niggling fees such as $2 per page photocopied or faxed would disappear. Who else nickels-and-dimes you while at the same time charging hundreds of dollars per hour? I'm surprised lawyers don't tack shipping and handling onto their bills…

• Physician controlled legal review. This is potentially the most exciting reform, with doctors leading committees for determining the necessity of all legal procedures and the fairness of attorney fees. What a wonderful way for doctors to get even with the sharks attempting to eviscerate the practice of medicine.

• Discourage/eliminate specialization. Legal specialists with extra training and experience charge more money, contributing to increased costs of legal care, making it unaffordable for many. This reform will guarantee a selection of mediocre, unmotivated attorneys but should help slow rising legal costs. Big shot under indictment? Classified National Archives documents down your pants? Sitting president defending against impeachment? Have FBI agents found $90,000 in your freezer? Too bad. Under reform you too may have to go to the government legal shop for advice…

• Ban legal advertisements. Catchy phone numbers such as 1-800-LAWYERS would be seized by the government and repurposed for reporting unscrupulous attorneys.

The entire piece is dynamite, and I can't urge you strongly enough to read the whole thing.

If you've been talking with someone about the dangers of socialized medicine and they are still unsure, send this piece to them to help them understand the absurdity of government trying to run the health care system.

Update: Fixed links.

Happy Labor Day: Union support hits record low

From Gallup:


And given that unions have become preoccupied with preserving the failing status quo in our schools and eliminating the secret ballot for workers, this isn't a surprise.

Nevada is a right-to-work state which means you do not have to join a union to keep your job.

If you are looking for more information on leaving a labor union and/or you run into any problems, check out the Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation or Union Facts.

(h/t Hotair)

The White House lies, employment dies, Biden tries to revise

At the beginning of this year, President Obama urged a quick passage of the $787 billion stimulus bill, because he said it was necessary to keep unemployment under 8 percent. Congress passed it, the President signed it, and today unemployment is at 9.7 % ― which is a higher rate than the White House projected would happen if Congress didn't pass the stimulus bill.


Now, if I had just made a $787 billion error, I'd apologize, move on and seriously reconsider my economic beliefs. This White House, though, has a slightly different strategy ― lie BIG.

So with his boss out of town, Mr. Biden stepped up Thursday to deliver a speech heavy with superlatives about the administration's economic stimulus plan. "Today there's a growing consensus: The Recovery Act [the $787 billion stimulus bill] is, in fact, working."

Declaring that 95 percent of all "working families" have received tax relief (check your mailbox), the vice president also noted that more than 54 million seniors and veterans "received a one-time check of $250." Mr. Biden also asserted that the program "saved or created 150,000 jobs in the first 100 days," and reiterated the administration's pledge to save or create another 600,000 in the second hundred days.

But that's where facts and fiction, like two Amtrak trains on the same track, collided. On Friday, the Labor Department is expected to announce another 200,000 jobs lost in August. Unemployment is expected to surge to 9.6 percent for August, according to Peter Morici, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Business, who predicts the rate will top 10 percent by year's end.

Since Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden took office, the economy has shed 3 million jobs. "The recession has wiped out all the jobs created in the private sector over the last decade," Mr. Morici wrote. And while the stimulus package is expected to add about 3 million jobs by the end of 2011, "most of those jobs will be temporary and 3 million will not be enough to replace the more than 7 million that will be lost before the recession ends."

But Mr. Biden pooh-poohed such negativity, saying the recovery program is just getting under way.

"If you look at the Recovery Act as a two-year marathon, we're at the nine-mile mark. We're just approaching the nine-mile mark. Two hundred days in, the Recovery Act is doing more, faster and more efficiently and more effectively than most people expected," he said.

Vice-President Biden and the White House are trying to change the standards for success, because they failed to fulfill their original promise ― low unemployment in the short term. And unfortunately, with its 13 percent unemployment rate, Nevada is feeling the effects of this broken promise more acutely than other states.

Oh, and Mr. Vice-President, if the Recovery Act is a two-year marathon, why did we have to pass the bill so quickly that no one ― NO one ― had time to read it?

The White House either doesn't understand or doesn't care about their policies' effects on the economy. And they want to run health care and cap-and-trade? Sorry, but the American people won't get fooled again.

The Obama administration should learn something about basic economics from cartoonist Michael Ramirez.


(h/t The Other McCain)

CCSD students don't have to listen to Obama's speech

For anyone who's missed the controversy swirling around President Obama's speech to school kids on Sept. 8, Michelle Malkin has all the background.

Unsurprisingly, there has been a huge uproar over this, as parents worry that the President will use this speech to try to indoctrinate their children. To be fair, we don't know what President Obama is going to say, although public outcry has forced the White House to revise the talking points accompanying the speech.

If you live in the Clark County School District, however, you can request your child not watch the speech and participate in another activity by calling your kid's school.

From Superintendent Walt Ruffles:

Teachers and students are not required to view the address as it is delivered. However, some teachers may determine that the activities and speech are compatible with their current curriculum and might take advantage of this opportunity.

Parents who prefer their children participate in an alternative curriculum-based activity may make that request by calling their children's schools.

(h/t to Casey Hendrickson and Heather Kydd at KXNT)

Talk on Nevada: The high cost of Obamacare

With the health care debate continuing to dominate the news, Talk on Nevada interviews Geoffrey Lawrence, a fiscal policy analyst with the Nevada Policy Research Institute, on the cost of Obamacare and if it will lead to rationing or death panels.

For more, read Geoff's recent commentary, Putting a price on government-run health care, or watch Geoff explain the implications of the public option.

Patients in the UK are 'sentenced to death'

It is a best practice in Britain to put patients receiving (often expensive) end-of-life care on a "death pathway" — which causes many premature deaths. Barack Obama "will accelerate efforts to develop and disseminate best practices."

Uh-oh, that's two-thirds of a syllogism.

From the Daily Telegraph:

Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.

As a result the scheme is causing a “national crisis” in patient care, the letter states. It has been signed palliative care experts including Professor Peter Millard, Emeritus Professor of Geriatrics, University of London, Dr Peter Hargreaves, a consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Luke’s cancer centre in Guildford, and four others.

“Forecasting death is an inexact science," they say. Patients are being diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the diagnosis could be wrong.

The whole article is worth reading, rereading and sending to all your friends (especially those on the other side of the health care debate), because it clearly shows where socialized medicine leads.

This isn't a small phenomenon, either. In 2007-08, 16.5 percent of all British deaths came after doctors administered this "death pathway." This rate is twice as high as the rate in Belgium and the Netherlands.

How did this come about? First this "death gateway" was established as a "best practice" in 2004. Then it was gradually adopted nationwide.

If you've been following the health care debate, you've often heard President Obama use this same term — best practices. Here's what Barack Obama's website says about them:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden will accelerate efforts to develop and disseminate best practices, and align reimbursement with provision of high quality health care.

It's worth repeating the conclusion to which these facts lead us. It is a best practice in Britain to put patients receiving expensive end-of-life care on a "death pathway" — many prematurely. Barack Obama will accelerate efforts to develop and disseminate best practices." Therefore …

That's one syllogism I hope we never have to finish.

Video: Why insurance makes health care more expensive

And yes, there are better solutions to our health care problems.

Whole Foods Buycott

Angry that someone with sympathy for some "progressive" values and a proclivity for organic foods understands how to run a business, the Left has called for a boycott of Whole Foods. CEO John Mackey angered many of his leftist customers recently when his column in the Wall Street Journal criticized ObamaCare. (Whole Foods gives all employees who work 30 hours or more high-deductible health insurance plans and also funds a health savings account to allow them to pay co-pays. This is exactly the type of market-oriented solution to health insurance advocated by the Cato Institute.) He has also remained unapologetic in his view that economic growth and ingenuity depend on the existence of free and open markets.

Not to worry, the National Tea Party Coalition has organized a "buycott" of Whole Foods today. So be sure to get out to Whole Foods today to voice your support of free enterprise.

Picture: Obama's tripling of the national debt

From the Heritage Foundation:


Money quote:

The public national debt – $5.8 trillion as of 2008 – is projected to double by 2012 and nearly triple by 2019. Thus, America would accumulate more government debt under President Obama than under every President in American history from George Washington to George W. Bush combined.

And this isn't an attempt to justify the level of debt and spending that we had under George W. Bush. Like Moveon.org, I was very concerned about the debt we accumulated under Bush. And now that we are accumulating debt even more rapidly, I am even more concerned.