NPRI's Steve Miller on Heidi Harris show tomorrow

A couple months ago NPRI revealed that Nevada's property-tax system has been operating outside the law for over a decade. Yesterday NPRI's Vice President for Policy Steven Miller penned an op-ed in the Review-Journal outlining the property-tax scheme.

Tomorrow (Tuesday, December 1) Steve is going to be on the Heidi Harris show at 7 a.m. to discuss the whole situation. You can tune in to KDWN at 720 AM in Las Vegas or listen live online.

Here's a complete listing of NPRI's investigative reports on the property-tax controversy.

Board of Equalization reschedules hearing: Session expected to shed light on assessment methods
County assessors fight state request to appear: State Board of Equalization members discuss subpoenas
Nevada's property tax shaft: More egregious than the public realized
For more than a decade, Nevada tax panel breaks law: State continues in ‘dereliction' of duties
Stage set for property tax showdown: Washoe County controversy only 'tip of the iceberg'
The birth of a rebellion: Why Nevada's property-tax system may soon crumble

Binion's to close all rooms, lay off 100 workers

Anyone remember the first tax increase passed by the Nevada Legislature earlier this year? A 3 percent room tax increase.

And today Binion's announced it is closing all 365 of its rooms and laying off 100 workers.

Binion's Gambling Hall & Hotel in downtown Las Vegas will close its 365 rooms on Dec. 14 and lay off about 100 workers.
Spokeswoman Lisa Robinson said the decision was made as a result of the economic downturn, which has decreased occupancy at the property and other hotels across the Las Vegas Valley.

Robinson said Binion's also will close the Binion's Original Coffee Shop and discontinue keno. The casino, sports book, poker room and Binion's Ranch Steakhouse on the property's 24th floor will stay open.

Now, I won't try to say Binion's closed its rooms based solely on the room tax increase, because a business decision (like the economy in general) is affected by numerous factors.

A tax increase on hotel rooms, however, decreases the demand for hotel rooms, especially in a weak economy. The government doesn't have to live with the reality of supply and demand, but businesses do, and when businesses run out of money, they have to cut back or go broke.

This is an example of why tax increases — especially a record-setting, billion-dollar, secret tax increase — kill jobs and the hurt the economy. The economy might still grow after a tax increase (because other economic factors might offset the damage caused by raising taxes), but the effect of the tax increase is to kill jobs and limit economic growth, which is what Nevada is experiencing right now.

Surrendering to the teacher unions?

A recent Wall Street Journal article notes that the Obama administration has retreated from education reform,

“In the spring, when the White House announced its $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" initiative to improve K-12 schooling, President Obama said, "Any state that makes it unlawful to link student progress to teacher evaluations will have to change its ways to compete for a grant." Education Secretary Arne Duncan told reporters, "states that don't have charter school laws, or put artificial caps on the growth of charter schools, will jeopardize their application."

The Administration appears to be retreating on both requirements. The final Race to the Top regulations allow states to use "multiple measures," including peer reviews, to evaluate instructors. This means states that prohibit student test data from being used to measure a teacher's performance may be eligible for the federal funds, even though the President clearly said that they wouldn't be.

Nor are states any longer required to embrace charter schools to win a grant. In June, Mr. Duncan scolded by name some of the states, such as Maine and Tennessee, that don't allow charters or limit enrollment in these independent public schools. Under the final regulations, however, states that prohibit charters can still receive Race to the Top dollars so long as they have other kinds of "innovative public schools." That's an invitation for states to game the criteria by relabeling a few traditional public schools as innovative. “

Climategate continues

Alarmists have tried to downplay the impact of the leaked emails, but Climategate gains steam in the national and international media. The Wall Street Journal writes,

The climatologists at the center of the leaked email and document scandal have taken the line that it is all much ado about nothing. Yes, the wording of their messages was unfortunate, but they insist this in no way undermines the underlying science. They're ignoring the damage they've done to public confidence in the arbiters of climate science.

The American Spectator outlines the allegedly neutral "RealClimate.org" connections to NASA climate alarmist and Al Gore advisor Jim Hansen, and even the left-wing MoveOn.org.

British opinion columnist Christopher Booker writes an excellent summary of Climategate for the Telegraph.

Reason Magazine reviews emails from a CRU researcher documenting his frustration with trying to put together climate data from dozens of undocumented, poorly documented and "completely messy" sources. CBS News covers the same story, concluding, "The irony of this situation is that most of us expect science to be conducted in the open, without unpublished secret data, hidden agendas, and computer programs of dubious reliability. East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit might have avoided this snafu by publicly disclosing as much as possible at every step of the way."

And geologist Don Easterbrook states,

Legitimate scientists do not doctor data, delete data they don't like, hide data they don't want seen, hijack the peer review process, personally attack other scientists whose views differ from theirs, send fraudulent data to the IPCC that is used to perpetuate the greatest hoax in the history of science, provide false data to further legislation on climate change that will result in huge profits for corrupt lobbyists and politicians, and tell outright lies about scientific data.

Climategate: Hide the decline

Global warming/climate change alarmists have soiled any high ground they may have held with the public. Alarmists have consistently vilified big oil executives, claiming they would lie, cheat and steal to make their profits. Leaked e-mails now suggest the alarmists have been threatening skeptics, preventing journals from publishing skeptical articles, hiding and manipulating data, and refusing to release raw data to skeptics wishing to verify the alarmists' research.

FYI: here are some of the more juicy climategate emails.

The press continues to parody itself

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something seems to be missing from these stories by the New York Times and the Washington Post on President Obama’s decision to attend next month’s United Nations meeting on climate change in Copenhagen.

Hmmm. Now what could it be?

Aha! Now I remember. It’s that little business about the whole premise upon which the conference rests being called into serious, serious question thanks to a thousand or so e-mails obtained by a computer hacker.

Nigel Lawson (a.k.a. Baron Lawson of Blaby), the former British chancellor of the exchequer, who is among prominent persons demanding a full and open public inquiry, summarized the content of the e-mails in this way:

"Astonishingly, what appears, at least at first blush, to have emerged is that (a) the scientists have been manipulating the raw temperature figures to show a relentlessly rising global warming trend; (b) they have consistently refused outsiders access to the raw data; (c) the scientists have been trying to avoid freedom of information requests; and (d) they have been discussing ways to prevent papers by dissenting scientists being published in learned journals. ...

Really, guys ... that’s not worth a mention? Not even in, say, paragraph 17, where most information inconvenient to your editors’ political views is typically found?

And here’s a question to ponder: In light of these latest revelations, should Al Gore now have to give back his Nobel Peace Prize? And speaking of Gore, what did he know about this scandal, and when did he know it?

Just asking questions here.

Teachers union u-turn

The Las Vegas Sun reports that the Nevada State Education Association is now negotiating with Democrats in the state legislature over the issue of student test data being used in teacher evaluations. Just last month, the union was fighting to stop this change. Apparently the bipartisan support (and money) on behalf of the change has broken the union down.

The fairest way to evaluate teachers using testing data is to use "value-added assessment." This method does not penalize teachers based on the aptitude of their students. Instead, each student is compared to his previous score rather than those of other students or some preset benchmark.

Of course, the teacher union also could have simply found those loopholes that Jeanne Allen from the Center for Education Reform claims would neuter the meaningful effects of reform.

Talk on Nevada: Thanksgiving edition

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Write on Nevada and the Nevada Policy Research Institute. And thank you for reading.

We'll be taking Thanksgiving and the rest of the weekend off, so expect light (if any) posting until Monday, when things will be back to normal.

Climate change collusion?

Have climate change scientists been colluding with one another to manipulate the data in order to claim humans are the main cause of global warming? Hundreds of leaked e-mails from East Anglia University’s Climate Research Unit suggest this might be the case. Patrick Michaels, a senior fellow at George Mason University and the Cato Institute, doesn’t think this is anything new. As an experienced climate scientist and global-warming skeptic, he claims that there has been an effort by SOME in the community to eliminate dissent – including preventing skeptics from being published in peer-reviewed journals and threatening skeptics with physical violence.

Time will tell who is right, but this provides more evidence as to why we probably shouldn’t jump head-first into expensive (and ineffective) socialist policies to “save the planet.”

Read some of the alleged emails here and here and some juicy tid-bits here. You can also learn more about "ClimateGate" at the Climate Depot.

What the Weimar is Krugman thinking?

Is Paul Krugman insane? Until last week's column, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, thinking of him as an honest economist who had been misled by the "voodoo" promises of Keynesian economics. But now it's clear that the transformation into political hack is complete.

Seven years ago, Krugman urged the Fed to create a "housing bubble" through expansive monetary policy. Greenspan obliged. That speculative inflationary bubble collapsed, creating the current crisis.

Now, Krugman is using an estimate of the so-called "Taylor Rule" (a theoretical guide for central banks to set interest rates) to claim that the optimal federal funds rate would be -6.7 percent. That's a negative sign in front of the 6.7. Negative.

That means the Fed would be printing money so quickly that you would have to pay your local grocer a premium just for him to accept payment in dollars. Prices would change by the hour. It would mean a complete collapse of the currency along the lines of the Weimar Republic. Economic production would cease because there would be no acceptable means of facilitating transactions.

Essentially, Krugman is admitting that the Fed has run itself into a Keynesian "liquidity trap." This means that the Fed can't lower interest rates enough to stimulate higher consumer spending — even assuming (erroneously) that to be necessarily a good thing. Of course, the liquidity trap is a function of the Keynesian policies themselves. The liquidity trap and, indeed, the recession itself, were created through overly extensive government manipulation of the economy over the last 15 years. Such phenomena would not exist in a truly free-market economy with a hard currency.

Yet Krugman is now out-stepping even his flawed Keynesian ideology. His application of the Taylor Rule to suggest a -6.7 percent interest rate is even criticized by the rule's creator. John Taylor, a fellow Keynesian for whom the rule is named, says interest rates are where they should be and that Krugman is misapplying the rule.

At this point, it seems apparent that Krugman is simply interested in providing political cover for policymakers at the Fed and in Washington, D.C., to feed the corporatist state and further subjugate American citizens to the tyranny of an emerging alliance between corrupt Wall Street financiers and their subordinates in government. It should be telling that Keynes told the Nazis that his theories were "much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state." As Keynes' most vocal modern disciple, Krugman's advice should be taken with a large grain of salt.

It's no wonder that the title of my latest series of commentaries was "Breeding Pessimism."

Healthcare freedom

No law shall be passed that restricts a person’s freedom of choice of private health care systems or private plans of any type. No law shall interfere with a person’s or entity’s right to pay directly for lawful medical services, nor shall any law impose a penalty or fine, of any type, for choosing to obtain or decline health care coverage or for participation in any particular health care system or plan.

That was the language for a 2006 ballot initiative in Arizona that would have prevented the ObamaCare penalties and a government takeover of health care. The initiative lost by fewer than 9,000 votes out of more than 2 million cast.

Opponents of the initiative, which included the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce and members of the insurance industry, outspent supporters 5-1, according to George Will.

Will, by the way, has written an excellent column on the legality of Arizona, and other states, standing up to the federal government on this issue.

Jim Gibbons to run for Congress

In Iowa.

OK, it's a different Jim Gibbons. But, of course, should the Nevada governor decide to run for Congress again, he'll suddenly have no shortage of seats from which to choose.

Support for health care plan hits new low

According to Rasmussen:

Just 38% of voters now favor the health care plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats. That’s the lowest level of support measured for the plan in nearly two dozen tracking polls conducted since June.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% now oppose the plan.

Al Gore was right?

About the need to privatize and improve air traffic controllers? Yes.



About global warming? Not so much.



Maybe Al should avoid issues he's unwilling to discuss.

'I think this boob is malignant'

As Sen. Harry Reid prepares to try and push through a health care vote on Saturday night, I think this cartoon says it all about socialized medicine and the recent news that the feds recommend fewer mammograms.


If the government's in charge of your health care, a bureaucratic panel is going to determine when and if you get mammograms. Or live-saving drugs for liver cancer. Or treatment for brain tumors. Or any other health care treatment you need.

And as the Heritage Foundation details, this plan would also kill jobs, hurt families, hurt states, hurt small business, hurt the poor and explode the deficit.

Property tax controversy heats up

John Dougherty's latest report for NPRI on Nevada's property-tax mess is a must-read.

As John reports,

In a sharp rebuke, Nevada's 17 elected county assessors yesterday refused a request by the state Board of Equalization to appear before a board hearing on Dec. 3 to provide detailed information of how they determine the valuation of 1 million parcels of property throughout the state.

Nevada Assessors Association President Michael Mears, the Eureka County Assessor, sent a letter early Thursday to the board rejecting its request to appear at the hearing that has been planned since last spring. Mears said the assessors discussed the issue Wednesday afternoon and voted in favor of the association notifying the board its members would not attend the hearing.

The letter said assessors were too busy preparing valuation notices and that many were strapped for funds and could not afford to attend the hearing in Las Vegas. The association suggested the meeting be rescheduled for next spring, and that it be expanded to include the members of the Tax Commission and officials from the state Department of Taxation.

The assessors' refusal to appear before the equalization board comes as increasing public scrutiny into Nevada's property-tax-assessment system has revealed a systemic failure by the state Tax Commission and the state Department of Taxation to ensure that county assessors are using uniform methods for the appraisal of property. The state Supreme Court in December 2006 ruled that assessors must use only appraisal techniques that have been approved by the commission, per state law.

Read the whole thing here.

And be sure to follow John's reporting on this story closely. Things are really starting to come to a boil.

Friday Funny

*by Chip Bok.

Death panels in the UK: Liver cancer drug rejected

Via the BBC.

A drug that can prolong the lives of patients with advanced liver cancer has been rejected for use in the NHS in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) said the cost of Nexavar - about £3,000 a month - was "simply too high".

But Macmillan Cancer Support said the decision was "a scandal".

More than 3,000 people are diagnosed with liver cancer every year in the UK and their prognosis is generally poor.

Only about 20% of patients are alive one year after diagnosis, dropping to just 5% after five years.

That's right, socialized medicine in the UK has led to a literal death panel. And those affected by it, like Kate Spall, whose mom's life was prolonged by the drug, are furious.

"The psychological feeling when a group of people decide that you cannot have a treatment that can help you is really devastating."

Socialized medicine = death panel. There's just no other option when you run out of other people's money.

There's no doubt this drug works well, but bureaucrats based their decision solely on the drug's cost.

Cancer Research UK's chief clinician Peter Johnson said the decision was "enormously frustrating" because there was no doubt about the drug's effectiveness.
He said: "There's no alternative treatment and there are no other places for people to go. It is expensive, but the only issue is cost and the number of patients affected are quite few - there's probably only six or seven hundred patients a year."

As the Senate considers a health care bill that will lead to socialized medicine, Americans need to look at places where there already is socialized medicine and ask themselves if they want to put our medical decisions in the hands of unaccountable bureaucrats.

Talk on Nevada: Tax study stakeholders group is made up of special interests

In this edition of Talk on Nevada, Geoffrey Lawrence details how the Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group is a collection of special interest groups that have gathered to provide political cover for a tax increase in 2011.

Geoff is going to be on the Heidi Harris show tomorrow (Friday November 20) at 8 am on KDWN. Heidi and Geoff are going to talk more about the tax study and the Stakeholders group. You can listen live here.

For more details read Geoff's commentaries, A ‘vision’ of extortion and control and IFC to hide behind unelected stakeholders.

Obama: Putting Hobbits to Work, Not You

Gary Varvel is the cartoonist for the Indianapolis Star. Click on the picture for a better look, and note the design of the Vice Presidential seal.

Is the "Race to the Top" education stimulus full of nothing but hot air?

Nevada’s restrictions on creating meaningful teacher evaluations based on student test scores mean that the state can’t get a hold of more than $4 billion in education stimulus funds. Or can it?

Obama’s “Race to the Top” stimulus funds program touted charter schools, merit pay, meaningful teacher evaluations and other reforms that would actually lead to improved student achievement. For once, the party of the status quo in education was going to fund programs that work for students, rather than fund programs for adults.

But according to the Center for Education Reform (CER), this “Race to the Top” rhetoric may be nothing but hot air.

"Throughout the entire evaluation formula proposed by the Department of Education's application, reform is deemphasized, and while states that are already doing good work will benefit, so might states that aren't," said Jeanne Allen, president of CER. "It is disappointing to see bold, exciting rhetoric on education reform from the Obama Administration turn into nothing more than lip service."

If true, this is sad news indeed.

Hide and fleece

In his column today, John Stossel details the problem of hidden taxes.

Hidden taxes are more pernicious because they disguise what we pay for government. We blame merchants, not our legislators, for the high price of gasoline, liquor, cigarettes and phone calls, but the money goes to the political thieves.

New York imposes a gas tax of 61 cents a gallon — almost a quarter of the cost of the gas. New York City taxes cigarettes at $4.25 a pack. Washington state collects $26 per gallon of hard liquor. Illinois politicians take a sneaky cut when you buy junk food: They add 6.25 percent to the cost of soda and candy.

My phone bill lists seven different taxes — unintelligible stuff like a "Public Safety Commission Surcharge" and an "MCTD tax." The payroll tax is one of the biggest hidden taxes. You assume that you know what you pay because it's listed on your paycheck, but that's actually only half of it. Employers must pay an equal amount — money that otherwise would have been part your salary.

Nevada has its own problem with hidden taxes, as NPRI’s Steve Miller explained in his 2008 study, Getting Plucked in Nevada. It’s well worth reading.

Recovery.gov says false Congressional districts aren't an egregious error

Yesterday, we revealed that Recovery.gov is reporting that $7.7 million in stimulus spending created 21 jobs in four Nevada Congressional districts that don't exist.

Not a big deal, according to the official Recovery.gov twitter account:

Did you know? Unless an egregious error is noted, Recovery.gov posts data exactly as it is reported by recipients.

What about the 75,343 bogus jobs “created or saved” by the stimulus? Are those not an egregious error, either? That number includes more than 4,000 bogus jobs in Nevada.

At least 4,000 of the supposedly created jobs in Nevada government -- and possibly hundreds more -- have been called into question in the light of reports that local governments were "told to take the amount of stimulus money they received and divide it by $92,000, the theoretical average wage and benefits of a job." The Nevada Department of Education divided by $66,681 and the state's higher education system used a figure of $45,000 when each estimated 2,000 jobs "saved." Source: Las Vegas Sun

The state Department of Forestry reported 34 jobs created from a grant that in fact created only nine jobs. Source: Las Vegas Sun

Just another reminder that the stimulus was and is an epic failure.

Nine jobs saved in Nevada's 22nd Congressional district

But that's nothing compared with the $6 million spent to save 12 jobs in Nevada's 32nd Congressional district.


All this information comes directly from the Nevada page of the federal government’s Recovery.gov site, which tracks stimulus spending.

This is why transparency is so important. Aside from finding out that Nevada has four new Congressional districts (Update: See the screenshot of all four after the jump), transparency allows citizens and journalists to dive into the data and find out the true number of jobs "created or saved." All across the country — from Massachusetts to Georgia to Michigan — the government has (grossly) over-reported the number of jobs "saved or created" by the stimulus. Without the ability to fact-check the government, we wouldn't know the truth.

Like the federal government thinks Nevada has a 25th Congressional district.

Update: I'm adding this screenshot which shows all four of Nevada's "new" Congressional districts and how much money was spent in each.

Pelosi: Jail ‘very fair’ punishment for failing to fulfill your patriotic duty to buy health insurance

It's ironic that Pelosi, Obama and Reid are so concerned about eliminating the "hidden tax" caused the uninsured when they are trying to impose at least another dozen actual taxes through the Obamacare bill. Also, the CATO Institute shows that Pelosi's argument about the uninsured increasing costs is a red herring, anyway.

Then there's the canard that the young impose costs on others by opting out of health insurance. In fact, the likelihood of requiring health insurance is extremely low for those younger than age 45. Their choice to forgo health insurance reflects a reasonable assumption of risk. If they fall sick, they can access the emergency room at a cost to others. But this cost source is small, contrary to the president's claim. A recent study by Jonathan Gruber of MIT shows that for physicians' services, about two-thirds of the uninsured pay list prices whereas the insured pay much lower prices. Indeed, even accounting for those uninsured people who don't pay, the uninsured as a whole do not impose net costs on the rest.

And as a "bonus," here's Sen. Akaka admitting there's no Constitutional authority for Congress to force you to buy health care, and that he doesn't even care.

Live blogging the IFC stakeholder selection meeting

***Scroll for updates***

Today a working group of the Interim Finance Committee (IFC) tax study subcommittee is meeting to determine the 19 members (subject to change) of the Vision Stakeholder Group. And we're live blogging it. Go here to watch live (second item) and here's the agenda.

For anyone who hasn't been following this charade, here's the quick recap. The IFC is conducting a tax study, which will be used to try and justify raising your taxes. As part of the tax study, the IFC is selecting a group of vision stakeholders who will set 5-, 10- and 20-year goals for Nevada. Never mind the myriad of problems with thinking that 19 people can set the goals for an entire state of unique individuals, the point of the stakeholders is to provide more political cover for proposing tax increases (ie the goals can only be obtained if the state spends more money). And when most of the stakeholder nominees represent the powerful special interests in Nevada, you know they are going to want more of your money. All this is summed up nicely in Geoff's article, A vision of extortion and control.

9:19 Although it was suppose to begin at 9, the meeting hasn't started yet. Probably a lot of deal cutting about which special interests are going to be represented on the stakeholder group. So there's time for you to read Jon Ralston's and Chuck Muth's thoughts on the whole process.

9:41 Still haven't started yet. The lobbying must be intense. If the legislators didn't try and pick the winners and losers and just focused on fulfilling its core functions we could avoid all this. Nevada's legislators don't have a good track record of anticipating the effects of their interference in the economy anyway. Via the

9:46 It begins.

9:48 Assemblyman Conklin, the working group chair, asks "How do you capture all of the diverse interests in Nevada?" He concludes that a group of 19 will "not capture everyone." Exactly! That's why government should fulfill its core functions and not try and pick the winners and losers. The government can't capture the uniqueness of 3 millions individuals, so it's guaranteed to be somewhat arbitrary.

9:52 Conklin says no elected officials or lobbyists. Too bad they only took nominees from the five main categories of Nevada's budget -- Commerce and Industry, Education, Public Safety, Health and Human Services, and Infrastruture. Almost every nominee is a defacto lobbyist for their own organization. If the IFC had really wanted non-lobbyists they would have created a category for taxpayers.

9:59 Now the category's Commerce and LABOR!!! Was that just an accidental slip or an intentional change to get more union representation?

10:00 Sen. Townsend's suspenders appear to be black this morning. He says Commerce and Industry. Maybe it was just a mistake.

10:01 Sen. Rhoads wants Doug Busselman to represent the rurals.

10:03 Conklin suggests Busselman be a (non-voting) alternate. First loser: everyone in agriculture. When the government picks winners they always pick losers.

10:06 Motion passes. I couldn't catch all the names, but there's no one from agriculture. Motion to make Busselman an alternate. Passes.

10:08 Education is up next. Unfortunately I (Victor) have an appointment, but Geoffrey Lawrence is going to take over the live blog.

10:11 Pleased to be here, the meeting is moving quickly as it is obvious that legislators have already prioritized who they would like to see represented on the stakeholder group. There is minimal debate over the four being recommended to represent education. Conklin has mentioned that charter schools and other alternative forms of public education should get a voice on the NVSG. Encouraging sign. The four appointed for education are: Paul Dugan (Washoe County School District), Rene Cantu (Latin Chamber), Marsha Irvin (Andre Agassi Academy) and Brian Rippet (NSEA) with John Packman (UNR School of Medicine) as an alternate.

10:21 Health and Human Services: Four representatives are Peter Bernhard (Cleveland Clinic), Sylvia Young (Sunrise Health), Susan Rhoads (Nevada Assoc. of Social Workers) and Denise Tanada Ashby (UNLV) with Dan Goulet (United Way) as an alternate.

10:25 Public Safety is moved ahead of Infrastructure because there is perceived to be less controversy over picks. Nominations are Katy Simon (Washoe County) and Cedric Williams (NLV Fire Dept.) with Janelle Kraft Pearce (LV Metro Police) as an alternate.

10:29 Senator Townsend nominates Robert Lang (Brookings Mountain West/UNLV), Thomas Perrigo (City of Las Vegas) and Terry Reynolds (Reynolds Company) to be NVSG representatives for Infrastructure

Senator Weiner wants to nominate one person at a time. Senator Townsend objects that they haven't done that for any of the other areas. He says all the other nominations would have to be redone and that would take "40 days and 40 nights" spending lots of taxpayer money in the process. Chairman Conklin agrees with Townsend that they should all be nominated as a single motion.

10:34 After debate, Conklin suggests that Senator Townsend amend his motion to include four candidates that the full committee would later pare down to three. He recommends that Robert Lee Potter (AFSCME) be included in that group. Senator Townsend appears irritated and says that he is open to amending the motion but would withdraw his motion if Potter is included because he would instead choose Christopher Stevens (Urban Land Institute).

10:38 Senator Matthews says that she does not like the idea of having a package of four to be vetted out later in a closed room. She wants to make these decisions in the open. She also does not want to torpedo the entire process because of a single name.

Conklin suggests that all five candidates be included in the motion. Townsend refutes that they should stay there and do their job of selecting candidates.

Conklin finally agrees to go with Townsend's original motion. Motion fails.

10:41 Senator Weiner now makes motion for Lang, Perrigo and Potter to be included. Motion fails. The focal points of the debate appear to be between Senators Weiner and Townsend. There appears to be some personal animosity between the two senators.

10:44 Conklin suggests that the motion either be for the two candidates that everyone agrees on (Land and Perrigo) and allow the full committee to decide the third or to include four or five candidates and allow the full committee to whittle the recommendation down. He again says he prefers the latter. He seems to be ignoring Senator Matthew's valid complaint that this idea would lead to backroom deal-making.

Conklin declares a five-minute recess. It looks like there will be some horse-trading going on and then they will return.

10:56 They're back. Conklin wishes to first go back to Commerce and Industry (which he again refers to as Commerce and Labor) and add in a second alternate. He suggests it be Devin Reiss (NV Assoc. of Realtors). I wonder what kind of horse-trading led to this suggestion.

10:57 Conklin is fishing for someone to make his motion for Reiss. Goicechea declines. Townsend takes it up. Motion carries. Reiss is second alternate behind Doug Busselman.

11:00 Conklin wants to get Infrastructure solved quickly. He says if they can't settle on something in the next few minutes then they will (again) just have to send in a list of four or five nominations and have the full committee whittle it down. Some members will have to move onto another meeting soon. Goicechea jokes that if the right members move on, they will achieve a consensus. Conklin is not amused.

Senator Matthews is suggesting that a motion be made for three nominations with an alternate all at once. Conklin is getting irritated (Sen. Matthews says she can see the frustration on his face). He says the alternate must be a separate motion. Sen. Matthews says that just because "some of you have heartburns about some of these names" there is no reason not to make a decision today.

11:06 Conklin: "Somebody needs to make a motion that will get five votes. That's the bottom line."

11:09 Committee is standing in temporary recess while they try to figure out a compromise.

11:11 Some members have to leave so Conklin goes to Townsend for a motion for Perrigo, Potter and Reynolds. Motion carries unanimously. Second motion for Lang to be alternate. Motion carries unanimously. Obviously some significant compromise was reached during the second recess.

11:15 Meeting is adjourned. There will be no more meetings of this subcommittee.

Let me back up since Victor missed the names for Commerce and Industry earlier. I didn't get all six of them, but it included: Joe Dini (NV Mining Assoc.), Alan Feldman (MGM Mirage), Douglas Dirks (Employers Holdings) and Keith Smith (Boyd Gaming).

In sum, and as anticipated, the nominees for the Nevada Vision Stakeholders' Group represent a collage of special interest groups including: gaming, mining, public employee unions and local government representatives.

Gee, I wonder what their recommendations will be.

As this is a live blog, I may make the occasional spelling or grammatical error. If I find any, I will correct those errors.

Veterans video: ‘Every day is a bonus’

I know Veterans Day was Wednesday, but that's no reason to limit our celebration of veterans to just one day. This video honoring WWII vets from Reason TV is very moving. Thank you again to our veterans and their families.



Also, the U.S. Marine Corps turned 234 this past week, which it commemorated with this outstanding video.

Saving the D.C. vouchers

Virginia Walden Ford, the executive director of D.C. Parents for School Choice, sent out an e-mail blast urging Americans to help save the D.C. Scholarship Program. The D.C. voucher program offered low-income children scholarships to attend private schools. Research showed that students attending the private schools with the vouchers had higher levels of achievement in reading than students who did not recieve a scholarship and remained in the public schools. Unfortunately, Democrats in Congress have attempted to terminate the program.


She writes,

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program — the nation’s only federally-funded school voucher program — is about to be eliminated by Congress.

We have fought tirelessly together for the past six months to save this program, generating more grassroots support for a school choice program than ever before in our nation’s history.

And, while some elected officials who previously opposed the program have indicated that they support the program's extension, I’m worried that the winds are blowing in the wrong direction. This program is now in serious jeopardy — and we’re not talking a matter of months, we’re talking weeks or days before decisions are made.

When I started fighting for D.C. school choice more than a decade ago, I did it because I was worried that my son, William, would fall through the cracks and fail at our local D.C. public high school — which was crumbling. I was a single mom, and I didn’t have the money to send William to a private school. Thankfully, a neighbor sponsored his tuition. His life changed. He thrived in school, and went on to serve our country in Iraq. After that, I joined to fight to bring school choice to low-income families.

To learn more about her effort to save the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, e-mail her at virginiawaldenford@gmail.com or visit the website: http://www.saveschoolchoice.com/stagesite/

More unintended consequences from government action

Just consider this another reason why the government shouldn't pick the winners and losers in an economy (using subsidies, tax credits or regulation).

At the Reid Gardner coal plant about 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas, the utility last month began mixing wood chips with the coal burned to produce electricity at the plant.

If it works the way the company hopes, NV Energy intends to use the wood-coal mix to qualify the power plant for a bit of renewable energy credit, another step toward meeting the state’s mandates for increasing the use of renewable energy.

That’s right, NV Energy may have a coal plant classified as producing at least some of its energy from a renewable source — biomass fuel. Biomass is biological material derived from living or recently living organisms. That includes organic garbage, alcohol fuels and wood.

The state renewable energy portfolio standard — NV Energy must produce 25 percent of its electricity using renewable resources and energy efficiency measures by 2025 — allows the use of biomass to generate electricity. But state lawmakers said they hadn’t intended that to mean burning wood in coal plants.

“I don’t think we contemplated it this way,” said Randolph Townsend, the senior GOP state lawmaker on renewable energy issues. “We’d prefer it was just a biomass capacity, not mixed with something that’s not renewable. That defeats the purpose, which is to encourage and incentivize renewable activity.”

"'I don't think we contemplated it this way,' said Randolph Townsend ..."

Sen. Townsend, it's not the role of politicians to contemplate the outcomes of targeted tax breaks, because tax rates shouldn't be targeted. Our elected representatives' job is to establish a uniform and low tax and regulatory burden, not to socially engineer desired outcomes — which rarely (if ever) turn out as they anticipated.

UPS vs. FEDEX

UPS is unionized and their labor costs are almost twice as high as FEDEX. That is why they want to use the power of the federal government to destroy its competition.

Talk on Nevada: What's causing high unemployment?

With unemployment hitting 10.2 percent nationwide and well over 13 percent in Nevada, Talk on Nevada interviews NPRI fiscal policy analyst Geoffrey Lawrence on the causes of unemployment and how poor government policy decisions have deepened the recession.

For more, read Geoffrey's newest commentary, Breeding pessimism: Policy responses from our politicians will exacerbate the recession.

Below average in math

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math scores have been released, and not surprisingly Nevada’s students find themselves below the national average. In more bad news, the achievement gap between white and black students has increased. By fourth grade, white students in Nevada have a two-year reading advantage over black students.

There is some good news. The achievement gap between wealthy and low-income students has decreased. The achievement gap between whites and Hispanics has also decreased. The gap is still very large as, by the fourth grade, white students are a year ahead of Hispanic students. Finally, while test scores across the nation have tended to stagnate, Nevada’s students have made modest progress.

Education is far from perfect in Nevada, and we need some serious reform — like more charter schools, vouchers, tuition tax credits, alternative teacher certification, and bans on social promotion — but at least there is some good news on the education front.

Read NPRI’s commentary titled “Math scores mixed” to learn more about Nevada’s achievement on the NAEP math scores.

NY state will be bankrupt before Christmas

Happy Holidays from one of the most liberal states in the nation.

Governor David Paterson called an unusual joint session of the Legislature Monday to implore recalcitrant lawmakers to close the state's huge budget gap before New York runs out of money.

To some lawmakers it's nothing more than a photo op to help Paterson get re-elected. But the governor is dead serious. He said if the Legislature doesn't cut the budget now the state could run out of money by next month.

"We're going to run out of cash in four and a half weeks. We are going to run out of money. Unless we do something about it, (it will) threaten generations," Paterson said.

And so began what is turning out to be a tense tug of war between Gov. Paterson and the Legislature. The governor says $3.2 billion in cuts must be enacted how (sic) -- or else.

If you just listened to liberals in Nevada you wouldn't believe this is possible, because New York has a personal income tax with a top rate of 8.97 percent, a corporate income tax of 7.1 percent, a state sales tax of 4 percent (plus local sales taxes) and some of the highest property taxes in the nation. In all, New York's state and local tax rates are the second highest in the nation. The state should not only have money coming out of its ears, but a tax system that is very stable, because unlike Nevada, New York has both a personal and corporate income tax.

But New York's still going broke. What happened?

"Last year, in the midst of this financial crisis, the Senate and the Assembly together with the governor decided to raise spending by $12 billion," added Sen. Andrew Lanza, R-Staten Island.

Which is exactly what Nevada did over the past few years.

These figures further reveal that the supposed "cuts" to spending made by legislators in the 2007-09 biennium have been overstated significantly. In fact, the figures show that General Fund spending over this biennium is projected to exceed the budgeted amount once again. Many of the supposed "cuts" have not included spending cuts at all, but instead were a series of loans and fund sweeps that allowed lawmakers to prop up spending.

The take-away from this (aside from the $1 billion in new taxes the legislature has already taken away from you) is that the budget shortfalls in Nevada, New York and around the country weren't and aren't problems of taxes collected or tax stability. They are spending problems. The desire politicians have to spend other people's money can't be satisfied. It only increases as they get more and more control.

A simple solution to our budget problems is zero-based budgeting, which requires the Executive Branch "to build its budget from scratch each biennium by weighing priorities and evaluating the effectiveness of existing programs." Right now Nevada practices baseline budgeting, in which "the Department of Administration first sets the 'baseline' by determining how much it will cost to continue the existing level of government operations over the next two years. This number increases substantially from one biennium to the next because it builds in so-called "roll-up" costs, such as caseload increases, higher agency assessments and, perhaps most significantly, annual employee pay raises."

For more on this subject, check out the Farm Bureau's excellent piece, Runaway Government Expansion Not Limited To Washington, D.C.

Happy Veterans Day

Many thanks to all who have served and are serving. We only have our liberty because of the many sacrifices of veterans and their families. Thank you.

Via Michelle Malkin, some restaurants are offering free food to veterans.

Applebee’s honors vets and active duty military with a free meal today. Krispy Kreme is doing the same. Or take a vet out to McCormack & Schmick’s or Golden Corral for a special dinner.

One way to remember some of the noblest sacrifices of our service men and women is to read of the courageous actions of Medal of Honor winners. A full list of Medal of Honor winners is here, and I've included the description of Sergeant First Class Paul Smith's gallant actions below.

*SMITH, PAUL R.
Rank and Organization: Sergeant First Class, United States Army
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty: Sergeant First Class Paul R. Smith distinguished himself by acts of gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with an armed enemy near Baghdad International Airport, Baghdad, Iraq on 4 April 2003. On that day, Sergeant First Class Smith was engaged in the construction of a prisoner of war holding area when his Task Force was violently attacked by a company-sized enemy force. Realizing the vulnerability of over 100 fellow soldiers, Sergeant First Class Smith quickly organized a hasty defense consisting of two platoons of soldiers, one Bradley Fighting Vehicle and three armored personnel carriers. As the fight developed, Sergeant First Class Smith braved hostile enemy fire to personally engage the enemy with hand grenades and anti-tank weapons, and organized the evacuation of three wounded soldiers from an armored personnel carrier struck by a rocket propelled grenade and a 60mm mortar round. Fearing the enemy would overrun their defenses, Sergeant First Class Smith moved under withering enemy fire to man a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a damaged armored personnel carrier. In total disregard for his own life, he maintained his exposed position in order to engage the attacking enemy force. During this action, he was mortally wounded. His courageous actions helped defeat the enemy attack, and resulted in as many as 50 enemy soldiers killed, while allowing the safe withdrawal of numerous wounded soldiers. Sergeant First Class Smith’s extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the Third Infantry Division “Rock of the Marne,” and the United States Army.

From slippery slope to vertical cliff

David Boaz of the Cato Institute has some great insight into the dangers of rapidly accelerating government encroachment in his column today. He particularly targets the unconstitutional powers recently granted to the Obama Administration's pay czar.

Here's the real kicker to his message:

It's time for Americans of left, right, and center to say that this is not the economic system we want. If you still have warm feelings toward Obama and his good intentions, ask yourself this: Will you feel comfortable one day when the appointees of President Romney or President Palin are exercising unconstitutional, unauthorized, unreviewable authority to restructure the economy the way they see fit?

The Nevada Policy Research Institute controls the Review-Journal?

Who knew? No one in the NPRI office did (I asked around), but fortunately the liberal group ProgressNow is letting the world — including us — know all about it.

No need for reporters when you have NPRI

The Nevada Policy Research Institute appears to have a direct line into the Review-Journal’s newsroom. The non-profit institute, which promotes “free market” principles in core areas of education and fiscal policy, gets the bulk of its media hits in the Review-Journal.

There’s certainly value to providing information and NPRI’s perspective to news sources. Local media outlets can certainly tap NPRI’s reports and analysts for this perspective. But it appears the Review-Journal has grown dependent on NPRI as a source.

And that's where the fine line between having a source for analysis and having a source that controls the news can easily be eroded.

Maybe the folks at ProgressNow could let us know the number for this special, “direct” line into the RJ's newsroom. Here we've been using the numbers from the RJ's contact page this whole time.

Fun and chuckles aside, it’s worth pointing out some of the many factual errors from the story about NPRI (besides the obvious one about us controlling the RJ, I mean). First, the story gets details about our funding wrong. It goes on to claim, falsely, that we hold “most” of our events at the Venetian (we typically hold one event there each year — that’s nowhere near “most”). Also, contrary to what the story states, Bill Weidner, an NPRI board member, no longer works for Sheldon Adelson, and President Bush never spoke at a fundraising event for NPRI.

Also, the story gets the details about NPRI's media coverage completely wrong. Our website features sections titled “In the News” and “NPRI in Print,” where we list just a sampling of the hundreds of media hits (print, TV, radio and online) we receive. So when ProgressNow claims that we get the “bulk” of our media hits from the RJ, that assessment is based on a tiny sampling of our actual media coverage — just those we’ve chosen to post to the site. To illustrate: Often times, radio interviews or radio news stories that feature the Institute don’t lend themselves to web posting, so they’re left off. But they are still a part of our media coverage.

So no, NPRI hasn’t taken over the Review-Journal. But we’re more than happy to take ProgressNow’s assessment of things as a sign that we’re doing a great job of getting our information out.

20 years ago, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down

On November 9, 1989 the wall separating East and West Germany came down and symbolized the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union.

It was a day when freedom triumphed over tyranny, and a day worth remembering. I hope these three videos will help you do that.

The first is of Reagan's "Tear down this wall" speech.



Here's a history of the Berlin Wall from CEI.



Here's a tribute to the victims of Communism from ReasonTV.

D.O.A. in the Senate

That's how Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) describes the health care bill passed by the House over the weekend.

National unemployment rate rises to 10.2 percent

Your monthly reminder that the stimulus was and is an epic failure.

Nine months ago, White House officials promised that if we passed the stimulus bill, unemployment wouldn't rise above 8 percent. They either lied or made a terrible miscalculation. Either way, they were spectacularly wrong, and citizens are feeling the effects of politicians' spend-happy miscalculations.

Remember this when politicians make promises about Obamacare that sound too good to be true. Liberals were wrong about the stimulus and they are wrong about the effects of socializing health care.

For more on the unemployment situation and how the stimulus has failed, check out Innocent Bystanders, the Heritage Foundation and Hotair.

Video: Soda pop and the free market

You should watch this video to find out if cucumber pop tastes good, and to see a great example of an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs, like John Nese, the owner of the soda shop featured in this video, are the individuals who create the jobs and products that drive our economy and make us all better off.



(h/t Seth Godin)

Don't Copy Europe's Mistakes

Eline van den Broek from the European Independent Institute in the Netherlands encourages Americans to not follow European style government health care. She notes that some European countries are even moving to increase markets and reduce the governments role in health care.

Congress votes to extend economically foolish, politically wise policy

Yesterday the House voted 403-12 to extend the first-time homeowner tax credit through the middle of next year. Two days ago the Senate voted 98-0 for the same package, and President Obama is almost certainly going to sign it into law soon.

Despite evidence that this tax-credit program had a minimal effect on boosting home sales — because most went to buyers who would have bought homes anyway — the bill passed with overwhelming support.

Why? Because this bill allows politicians to go back to their constituents and claim they were doing something about the housing "crisis." They were seeking to raise housing prices for the millions of homeowners who are currently underwater in their mortgages. They care about the hurting.

Never mind that politicians' "compassion" is going to cost us and our children billions of dollars.

Never mind that government policies enabled and contributed to the housing bubble in the first place. Our politicians are eager to "solve" this current problem in the short term, even if it means greater pain in the long term.

Even if it's by using tax credits, government shouldn't choose the winners and losers in an economy. Targeted tax credits and tax breaks are just as destructive as subsidies, because they provide false information about how valuable a product or service is, which leads to less wealth. (If that last sentence didn't make sense to you, I urge you to read this piece on how money acts as a signal in the market place to direct limited resources to their most productive ends.)

Government should provide a uniformly low tax and regulatory burden and let individuals live their lives and face the consequences (good or bad) of their own decisions. As we've seen with Cash for Clunkers, money for first-time homeowners, and scores of other government programs, history shows government programs make things worse, not better, in the long run.

Talk on Nevada: Some CCSD trustees want to make ignoring the public official board policy

Andy Matthews interviews Karen Gray on this week's Talk on Nevada. Karen details why some Clark County School District trustees are pushing a new policy that would prohibit board members from responding to some public comments.

For more on this issue, check out Karen's recent commentaries, 'Desk-men for the bureaucracy' and Speak no evil.

Managed competition for Nevada

Joe Schoenmann at the Las Vegas Sun has a great article today on the merits of “managed competition,” an approach that NPRI has highlighted in the past.

Using this approach, government solicits bids for the provision of public services and allows public employee unions to submit bids in competition with private firms. The contracts awarded are performance-based and often lead to significant gains in quality as well as reductions in cost.

In a majority of cases, these bids are won by unionized public employees. Yet, the mere exposure to competition forces public employees to identify and eliminate inefficiencies in order to deliver lower-cost and higher-quality services.

Managed competition is an approach that should be seriously considered at all levels of government in Nevada.

Legislature's social engineering project

Nevada's Interim Finance Committee is convening a social engineering project that will dole out corporate welfare to rent-seekers at the taxpayers' expense. Read about it at NPRI's main site today.