Exactly. In light of government failure after government failure, why does anyone trust the government to pick the winners and losers — let alone with something as important as health care?3. Bill Raggio, Steven Horsford and Barbara Buckley: These three lawmakers had no mercy on the taxpaying public this year as they worked together to ram through $1 billion in tax hikes. While Nevada companies were shedding jobs, these three were overwhelmingly concerned with the needs of the government they've grown over the years, and protecting the unsustainable salaries and benefits they've put in place for their most important constituents: public employees.As if $1 billion in tax hikes wasn't enough, Nevada's legislative leaders aren't waiting until 2011 to start thinking about new taxes either. As I wrote last week, the Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group is meeting next Friday (January 8, 2010) to begin setting goals for Nevada's future. I sure am glad 19 unelected people (most representing special interest groups of some sort) are going to set spending goals for the future and how to pay for them.
State retail sales were slumping? Raise the sales tax! Layoffs everywhere? Raise the payroll tax, and punish companies for creating new positions! Taxpayers holding onto their cars longer because they can't afford new ones? Raise the vehicle registration tax! Hotels can't fill their rooms? Raise the room tax! Then watch as the new revenues come nowhere close to projections, setting the stage for new cutbacks -- and new calls for higher taxes.
Hopefully, with a strong citizen turn-out and input for non-governmental alternatives in the quality-of-life visioning we might be able to establish more of a balanced viewpoint than what it appears to be possible at this point in time.After the Christmas holiday is over, we'll be coming back to this topic, so enjoy the holidays, but stay tuned.
I’ve always been a goo-goo—a good government guy—and sure I support Rory Reid’s read on a ‘Foundation of Rust’ … ooops, I mean Trust, however, it is really lacking any semblance of teeth, is missing electronic donation reporting within 48 hours, and missing strengthening, including mandatory jail, for those who blow off ethics and campaign laws.Chuck Muth:
Blogger Mike Zahara is on the Left. I’m on the Right. And we both agree that all campaign donations should be posted on the Internet within 48 hours. And even though there’s no law COMPELLING candidates touting ethics reform and transparency (hello, Rory Reid!) to post all of their contributions on a public website on a regular basis, there’s also nothing PREVENTING them from leading by example and doing so voluntarily. Any takers?Will any candidates give an early Christmas gift to taxpayers and make this commitment? We'll let you know if they do.
Establish an open meeting law for the Legislature. I’ll work to establish an open meeting law for the Nevada Legislature that allows the body to conduct its business expeditiously, given the limits of a 120-day legislative session, but places a premium on openness and transparency. All legislative committee hearings, subcommittee hearings and work sessions should be open to the public as a matter of law rather than just standard practice. I’ll work with the legislature to define the parameters of such a law so citizens and the press have consistent, predictable, and open access to the public’s business.During the last legislative session, Nevada's legislative leaders determined the budget and the record-setting, job-killing, billion-dollar tax increase through a series of secret, closed-door meetings.
In enacting this chapter, the Legislature finds and declares that all public bodies exist to aid in the conduct of the people’s business. It is the intent of the law that their actions be taken openly and that their deliberations be conducted openly…If Reid really wants to establish an open-meeting law for the legislature, all he would need to do is delete the line that says "'Public body' does not include the Legislature of the State of Nevada." I also hope he's not the only candidate to reject this legislative double standard.
The Legislature is specifically excluded from the Open Meeting Law. NRS 241.015(3).
Since the Legislature, as a whole, is not governed, none of its various committees or subcommittees are governed by the law while the full Legislature is in session.
Reid said he is not familiar with what would be involved in making state government budgets, expenditures and contracts totally transparent on a searchable database. Nor is he proposing any changes right now to the way candidate campaign contribution and expense reports are available for public review.Maybe leaving out the searchable budget database was an oversight, because it's an idea with deep bi-partisan support. If Rory Reid wants any information on the searchable budget database, here's a great place to start. And if that's not enough, we're only a phone call or e-mail away.
No word yet if any single NPRI staff members have rushed off to buy a copy of this game, but I'll let you know…
The BBC has more.
Despite an official unemployment rate of 27 percent, the real jobs problem in Detroit may be affecting half of the working-age population, thousands of whom either can't find a job or are working fewer hours than they want.Detroit is traditionally very liberal and has been slowly bleeding auto-worker, labor-union jobs for years as car companies built new plants in right-to-work states like Texas and Alabama.
Using a broader definition of unemployment, as much as 45 percent of the labor force has been affected by the downturn.
And that doesn't include those who gave up the job search more than a year ago, a number that could exceed 100,000 potential workers alone.
"It's a big number, and we should be concerned about it whether it's one in two or something less than that," said George Fulton, a University of Michigan economist who helps craft economic forecasts for the state.
Mayor Dave Bing recently raised eyebrows when he said what many already suspected: that the city's official unemployment rate was as believable as Santa Claus. In Washington for a jobs forum earlier this month, he estimated it was "closer to 50 percent."
The Copenhagen climate change conference appeared to be imploding from within and exploding from without on Wednesday.Those unruly protesters are environmentalists, by the way. And don't worry, PM Rasmussen. There are probably just as many people around the world who are hoping that the conference won’t produce a job-, wealth- and economy-killing agreement.
Police fired tear gas, brandished batons and detained more than 200 protesters who tried to push through the security cordon around the Bella Center, as negotiations inside bogged down, for the second time this week, over differences between China and the West over emissions, funding issues and transparency.
"People around the world [are] actually expecting something to be done from us,” red-faced Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen lectured delegates from nearly 200 nations.
3) Warmer periods of the Earth’s history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.Read the whole thing.
4) After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.
5) Throughout the Earth’s history, temperatures have often been warmer than now and CO2 levels have often been higher – more than ten times as high.
10) A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred years.
22) There is strong evidence from solar studies which suggests that the Earth’s current temperature stasis will be followed by climatic cooling over the next few decades
23) It is myth that receding glaciers are proof of global warming as glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for many centuries.
96) Canada plans to reduce emissions by 20 percent compared with 2006 levels by 2020, representing approximately a 3 percent cut from 1990 levels but it simultaneously defends its Alberta tar sands emissions and its record as one of the world’s highest per-capita emissions setters.
Those hoping to ride the state's high-speed train next decade will have to dig much deeper into their wallets than officials originally thought, a harsh reality that will chase away millions of passengers, according to an updated business plan released Monday.As Nevada considers a couple of train options, we should heed the warning of California's boondoggle in the making, and remember that the government has no business subsidizing any business.
The average ticket on the bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles is now estimated to cost about $105, or 83 percent of comparable airfare. Last year, the state said prices would be set at 50 percent of comparable airfare and predicted a ticket from San Francisco to Los Angeles would cost $55.
As a result of the higher fares, state officials now think the service will attract 41 million annual riders by 2035, down from last year's prediction of 55 million passengers by 2030.
Finally, the cost of the project — recently pegged at $33.6 billion in 2008 dollars — is now estimated at $42.6 billion in time-of-construction dollars.
The gloomy forecasts are included in the California High-Speed Rail Authority's updated business plan, which the state Legislature required the authority to submit by today.
The authority last produced a business plan in 2008. State officials had used what turned out to be optimistic ridership and ticket price forecasts in presenting a $9.9 billion bond measure called Proposition 1A, which voters approved in November 2008.
The political dynamic in addressing this issue needs to be acknowledged, as the county gets ready to negotiate with unions whose contracts will end in the middle of the year, which is when the new fiscal year begins. The seven-member County Commission is made up of all Democrats, and employee unions tend to favor them over Republicans at election time. The employee unions are powerful and can make the difference in a close race.
Longevity pay ostensibly is about keeping veteran employees who might otherwise leave for better salaries, whether in the private sector or a different government agency. But such a benefit is hardly common in the private sector, and it strains credulity to defend it when county employee salaries are lucrative. In today’s age, longevity pay is an anachronism that should be discarded.
"The whole world needs to adopt China's one-child policy," writes Canadian journalist Diane Francis, mother of two.Just another example of an environmental hypocrite.
Dear Friend,So with that build-up — promising to expose "the real Palin" — I clicked on the news stories expecting something dramatic. Instead, I read this:
There were eight inches of snow. It was 10 degrees.
But that didn't stop us from shining the light of truth on Sarah Palin when she came to Reno on Wednesday night.Our members braved the elements because the truth matters.
And, thanks to our stalwarts in Reno, we helped make sure the good people of northern Nevada got to see the real Palin.
http://rgj.com/article/20091209/NEWS/91209016&OAS_sitepage=news.rgj.com%2Fbreakingnews
We even made the press back in Palin's home state: http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/ap_alaska/story/1048248.html
Ahead of the book signing, the Nevada Democratic Party urged members to join activists at a protest outside the venue to show "we won't stand for her lies about" health care reform legislation that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and others are trying to push through Congress.So in response to one of the Left's most hated (or feared) conservatives, ProgressNow turned out 12 people. And were any of them not paid employees of Progress Now or the Democratic Party?
But with temperatures in the low teens after an overnight low of minus 6, only about a dozen Palin critics showed up and they were told by Costco officials they were not allowed to be there on private property, said Brian Fadie, a spokesman for the event organized by the nonprofit ProgressNowNevada.
"As soon as we unfurled our signs ... Costco told us to vacate the area. They wanted us to go way across the parking lot. It's just so cold a lot of people dispersed after that," he said.
Most of the 1,000 supporters who waited several hours, some overnight in sub-zero temperatures, said Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s book signing Wednesday in Reno was worth the wait…That's right, more people were in line overnight, in freezing temperatures, waiting for Gov. Palin's autograph than ProgressNow could get to come for a (very) brief rally.
“It was totally worth staying overnight because I’m warm now,” said Jeff Hardie, a special education teacher who drove about four hours from Windsor, Calif., to be among the first in line Tuesday night. “I’m definitely a supporter.”
Supporters and curious onlookers gathered in the aisles inside the store, eager to catch a glimpse of Palin.
“I like that she’s a common sense conservative,” said Truckee resident Bob Van Gelder, whose Uncle Sam outfit included a fake white beard and top hat. “I’ve read her book and it’s an incredible life where she talks about fighting corruption and that’s what we need.” …
The line for Palin’s visit began to form at 5:20 p.m. Tuesday and about 20 people stayed overnight, Costco general manager Bob Tote said.
But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.
Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.
The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.
Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.
Didn't you get the EPA's memo? CO2 is now a "pollutant." So global warming true believers — it's time you stop exhaling and polluting this precious planet of ours.Al Gore has studied the Climategate emails with his typically rigorous eye and dismissed them as mere piffle:Oh well, don't let a few (hundred) inconvenient truths get in the way of your hypocritical lifestyle. Gore's probably still exhaling and flying on private jets.Q: How damaging to your argument was the disclosure of e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University?And in case you think that was a mere slip of the tongue:
A: To paraphrase Shakespeare, it’s sound and fury signifying nothing. I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old. These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus.Q: There is a sense in these e-mails, though, that data was hidden and hoarded, which is the opposite of the case you make [in your book] about having an open and fair debate.In fact, as Watts Up With That shows, one Climategate e-mail was from just two months ago. The most recent was sent on November 12 — just a month ago. The e-mails featuring Tom Wigley seeming (to me) to choke on the deceit are all from this year. Phil Jones’ infamous e-mail urging other Climategate scientists to delete e-mails is from last year.
A: I think it’s been taken wildly out of context. The discussion you’re referring to was about two papers that two of these scientists felt shouldn’t be accepted as part of the IPCC report. Both of them, in fact, were included, referenced, and discussed. So an e-mail exchange more than 10 years ago including somebody’s opinion that a particular study isn’t any good is one thing, but the fact that the study ended up being included and discussed anyway is a more powerful comment on what the result of the scientific process really is…
So it's especially ironic to read this in liberal blogger Hugh Jackson's recent City Life column. "[T]he stimulus is doing what it is supposed to do, it is contributing to ending the recession," Moody's economist and former McCain-Palin economic adviser Mark Zandi recently told the New York Times, in a story reporting that all the mess and farce of implementation notwithstanding, economists have reached a consensus that the stimulus a) was necessary and b) is working.Funny, that's not what President Obama thought in January.
The creation of new jobs is the least significant impact of the stimulus, so naturally that's the part that Democrats and Republicans have chosen to squabble over. (Emphasis added)
Early this year, as the U.S. Congress prepared to debate a $787 billion spending bill that's better known as the stimulus plan, President Barack Obama claimed that immediate action was necessary to prevent unemployment from skyrocketing.In the next sentence in that address, President Obama said, "That is why I have proposed an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan to immediately jumpstart job creation as well as long-term economic growth."
"Experts agree that if nothing is done, the unemployment rate could reach double digits," Mr. Obama said in a January 24 radio address. "If we do not act boldly and swiftly, a bad situation could become dramatically worse." The same month, his economic advisors released a report saying that, without the stimulus, unemployment would hit around 8.5 percent by April 2009, and 7.8 percent with it. (Emphasis added)
A key goal enunciated by the President-Elect concerning the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is that it should save or create at least 3 million jobs by the end of 2010.Or check out the White House's current page on the economy.
President Obama’s first priority in confronting the economic crisis is to put Americans back to work. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan signed by the President will spur job creation while making long-term investments in health care, education, energy, and infrastructure.So although Jackson claims the "creation of new jobs was the least significant impact of the stimulus," President Obama argued (and his website still does) that creating new jobs is the President's "first priority."
When -- and if -- Nevada again achieves something resembling economic health, it will be despite the state's political class, not because of it.
Officials gather in Copenhagen this week for an international climate summit, but business leaders are focusing even more on Washington, where the Obama administration is expected as early as Monday to formally declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.In case you don't understand the title, humans breathe out carbon dioxide (CO2) — the same gas that the EPA is likely going to declare a dangerous pollutant.
An "endangerment" finding by the Environmental Protection Agency could pave the way for the government to require businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions -- even if Congress doesn't pass pending climate-change legislation. EPA action to regulate emissions could affect the U.S. economy more directly, and more quickly, than any global deal inked in the Danish capital, where no binding agreement is expected.
Many business groups are opposed to EPA efforts to curb a gas as ubiquitous as carbon dioxide.
An EPA endangerment finding "could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project," U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said in a statement. "The devil will be in the details, and we look forward to working with the government to ensure we don't stifle our economic recovery," he said, noting that the group supports federal legislation.
The Congressional Budget Office today released a report asserting that the stimulus succeeded in creating growth and jobs. If this seems completely detached from reality, it’s because CBO did not actually analyze the performance of the economy — including the rapid increase in the unemployment rate since the stimulus was enacted. They simply took their economic model that predicted last January the stimulus would work, re-plugged in the bill’s provisions, and (surprise!) got the same result. CBO is effectively saying the evidence the stimulus worked is that they predicted it would work. It’s like a weather forecaster standing in the pouring rain and asserting that its currently sunny, because his computer model had predicted sun.
The report’s other problem is its nonsensical Keynesian economics. The CBO asserts that $200 billion in deficit-spending from the stimulus added (a middle estimate of) 2.2 percent to economic growth. But if deficits equal stimulus, then the entire $1 trillion in additional 2009 deficits over 2008 should be counted. And CBO’s assertion that $200 billion new deficit spending adds 2.2 percent to GDP means the full $1 trillion in new deficits should have added 11 percent to the GDP. Yet the economy shrank by 2.3 percent. Are we to believe that without the new deficit-spending, the economy would have contracted by 13.3 percent, as CBO’s analysis implies? Surely it would be difficult finding any credible economist who would argue this. Yet it is what the CBO’s economic logic would suggest.
“With print media players disappearing faster than mosasaurs in the late Cretaceous, one would expect the last papers standing to be extra careful with their fact checking for fear of being blogged into extinction. One’s expectations would be mistaken.
Yesterday’s LA Times editorial on charter schools combined errors of fact and omission with a misrepresentation of the economic research on public school spending. First, the Times claims that KIPP charter public schools spend “significantly more per student than the public school system.” Not so, says the KIPP website. But why rely on KIPP’s testimony, when we can look at the raw data? LA’s KIPP Academy of Opportunity, for instance, spent just over $3 million in 2007-08, for 345 students, for a total per pupil expenditure of $8,917. The most recent Dept. of Ed. data for LAUSD(2006-07) put that district’s comparable figure at $13,481 (which, as Cato’s Adam Schaeffer will show in a forthcoming paper, is far below what it currently spends). Nationwide, the median school district spends 24 percent more than the median charter school, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.”
"hackers recently stole emails and documents from the East Anglia center that suggested Dr. Jones and other like-minded scientists tried to squelch the views of dissenting researchers and advocated manipulating data.
The fallout from the hacked emails is spreading beyond the U.K. Also Tuesday, Penn State University confirmed that Michael Mann -- a climate scientist on its faculty who figures prominently in the emails -- is under "inquiry" by the university."
The staffs of the Las Vegas Sun and its Web site, LasVegasSun.com, will merge and move into the same office as part of a plan to reorganize the local operations of The Greenspun Media Group, the company announced today…The point of this post isn't to boast about how a decidedly liberal news outlet is having to cut back — it's hard to lose your job, and I feel for those laid off. The point is to highlight how a decidedly liberal organization operates when it doesn't have the option — like government does — to force its customers to pay for its product.
The reorganization involves an unspecified number of layoffs. Affected employees were to be informed today. The changes were prompted, Greenspun said in the press release, by the need to better meet the information and marketing needs of the Las Vegas area and to create a sustainable business model in the face of the continued recession…
The reduction in the company's workforce comes on the heels of the closure of its community newspapers and a Web and broadcast TV program, 702.tv.
PLAN was hit hard by the economic downturn. But we developed a plan to ensure we move forward with our core mission intact. We cut our budget by 20 percent through a combination of staff layoffs, reduction in hours, and voluntary pay cuts. We’re grateful that you have demonstrated your confidence in our work through your increased contributions during these turbulent times.Apparently PLAN likes to brag about budget cutting. I look forward to their proposals in the next legislative session. Here are some recommendations for cost cutting and reform to get them started.
"This is the time that the government's supposed to step up. This is the time for us to create jobs."Timeout, Mayor Goodman. It isn't the government's role to create jobs. The local governments' role is to provide essential services, like roads, police and fire protection. In providing those services, jobs will be created, but the government's motivation should be to provide the service, not to guarantee employment for certain workers (or employ more workers just for the sake of "creating jobs").
The City Council is scheduled Wednesday to vote on pursuing the project, provided the financing meets the city's projections. If approved, construction of the building would take about two years.
Officials predict revenue from the new projects, and sales of city land could cover the costs of a new City Hall.You have to be careful whenever government officials predict something. As I've written before, "Officials" and "experts" are often wrong.
The most recent economic forecast also projects that the city will return to pre-downturn revenue levels by 2014 or 2015, but also predicts that growth will be much slower than what the city has had in the past.
"Can I guarantee those things are going to happen? No, I can't," Goodman said.
Las Vegas Sun headline: "How did so many experts get their forecasts so wrong? Difficulty, missed signs and lingering boom-time euphoria all contributed to inaccurate predictions".Now, business men and women make predictions, too. And they are often wrong as well. The difference is that when a business fails, only its investors and employees are hurt. If (or when) the city hall project starts to lose money, all taxpayers in Las Vegas will be on the hook.
And that's exactly why it isn't the government's job to pick winners and losers. There are no sure things. Every business decision involves a degree of risk.
And when politicians try to "create" jobs using TIF, STAR bonds or tax incentives, they are taking a risk, a chance, a gamble with taxpayers' dollars.
Legislators and governors aren't elected to try to win money for the taxpayers. They should create a uniformly low tax and regulatory burden that allows businesses to succeed or fail on their merits, not their ability to play politics, woo politicians and gain taxpayer subsidies.
Over the past three decades, local governments in Nevada have recognized that extensive use of onerous zoning and other restrictions have had the unintended consequence of discouraging private developers from investing in downtown areas. To overcome these government-imposed obstacles, local governments have established redevelopment agencies with the charge of revitalizing urban areas. Redevelopment agencies attempt to lure private investment back into city centers by offering taxpayer-funded incentives through a method known as tax-increment financing.
Tax-increment financing systematically channels tax dollars away from school districts, police departments and fire departments, for example, and into redevelopment agencies. Redevelopment agencies use those tax dollars to make payments on bonds that have been issued in order to construct elaborate public facilities or to provide financial incentives for private developers to invest in city centers.
This approach has incurred a new and potentially worse set of unintended consequences. It exposes taxpayers within redevelopment zones, who are often low-income families, to burdensome amounts of debt in order to subsidize large-scale developers. It further creates opportunities for corruption by making public officials responsible for taxpayer funds that are explicitly designated for disbursement to private developers. Moreover, redevelopment agencies in Nevada are designed to endow local officials with powers that are not legally vested in them by the voting public and can insulate the actions of local officials from public scrutiny.
These impacts are particularly egregious given the fact that they are completely unnecessary for the purpose of encouraging investment in city centers. City officials in Anaheim, Calif., have recently demonstrated that redevelopment can be accomplished much more effectively and without adverse consequences simply by easing the barriers which have impeded development in the first place.
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