Meet the man who's suing the feds over Obamacare

He's also been called the "most powerful lawyer in Arizona."

Who is he and why is NPRI hosting him at its December Policy Luncheon?

His name is Clint Bolick, and he is the director of the Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation at the Goldwater Institute in Arizona.

NPRI is excited to be hosting him on Friday, Dec. 3 for a presentation on "Taking Tyranny to Court," which will include details on how a state-based litigation center can protect citizens from government overreach and abuse.

Please join us there. The lunch starts at 11:30 a.m. at the Las Vegas Country Club. The cost is $30. More details are here and you can register here.

Come join fellow believers in limited, constitutional government. We hope to see you there.

Until then, enjoy this interview with Clint Bolick detailing how he and the Goldwater Institute are protecting the rights of citizens through the courts.

What the Pilgrims were thankful for: Property rights

A great new video from ReasonTV on a little told story about Thanksgiving — how embracing property rights helped pilgrims survive and thrive. Enjoy and have a Happy Thanksgiving.



NPRI is going to be closed on Thanksgiving as well as this Friday, so blogging will be light over the next few days. Thank you for reading Write on Nevada, and we hope that you and your family and friends have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

We'll see you Monday.

Why it’s not easy being green

A green job that is. While green job training is costing the government plenty of money, the jobs are few and far between.

After losing his way in the old economy, Laurance Anton tried to assure his place in the new one by signing up for green jobs training earlier this year at his local community college.

Anton has been out of work since 2008, when his job as a surveyor vanished with Florida’s once-sizzling housing market. After a futile search, at age 56 he reluctantly returned to school to learn the kind of job skills the Obama administration is wagering will soon fuel an employment boom: solar installation, sustainable landscape design, recycling and green demolition.

Anton said the classes, funded with a $2.9 million federal grant to Ocala’s workforce development organization, have taught him a lot. He’s learned how to apply Ohm’s law, how to solder tiny components on circuit boards and how to disassemble rather than demolish a building.

The only problem is that his new skills have not resulted in a single job offer. Officials who run Ocala’s green jobs training program say the same is true for three-quarters of their first 100 graduates.

…The Obama administration channeled more than $90 billion from the $814 billion economic stimulus bill into clean energy technology, confident that the investment would grow into the economy’s next big thing.

The infusion of money is going to projects such as weatherizing public buildings and constructing advanced battery plants in the industrial Midwest, financing solar electric plants in the Mojave desert and training green energy workers.

But the huge federal investment has run headlong into the stubborn reality that the market for renewable energy products – and workers – remains in its infancy. The administration says that its stimulus investment has saved or created 225,000 jobs in the green energy industry, a pittance in an economy that has shed 7.5 million jobs since the recession took hold in December 2007.

This is important to remember, especially since Nevada's politicians keep talking about how "green jobs" are the future for Nevada's economy.

(h/t Michelle Malkin)

A modest step forward: CCSD starts open enrollment

CCSD's only doing it on a limited basis, but it's a start.

The Clark County School District unveiled plans Monday to expand school choice for students in 2011-12, but many of the district's most desirable options probably will be off limits.

Current schools of choice, such as magnet and vocational schools, won't be included in the open enrollment plan. Schools that are at or above their normal enrollment capacities also will be excluded.

That would rule out schools such as the Las Vegas Academy, the district's magnet school for the performing arts, and Henderson's Green Valley High School, which is at its enrollment capacity this year. ...

The schools with the space to offer open enrollment will be announced today on the district's website, http://www.ccsd.net/. The list will include 41 elementary schools, 19 percent of district elementary schools; 48 middle schools, 81 percent of district middle schools; and 16 high schools, 33 percent of district high schools.

A full list of available schools is here. Answers to FAQs are here. And if any parents want to apply, they can do so at the CCSD's website.

CCSD should be congratulated for taking a modest step toward recognizing that parents deserve more educational options and choices.

This plan isn't going to solve all or even many of CCSD's problems (and given that parents are responsible for transportation and can't transfer back to their original schools, it has some issues as well). But parents should hope that it's the first of many steps CCSD takes toward increasing educational freedom. Continuing to follow Rory Reid's education plan would be a good place to start.

The only concern here is that school choice skeptics will claim that the level of use the program receives, which I predict will be modest at best, is a sign that parents don't want more educational freedom.

Nevada's parents want school choice. This program is only a small step on the road to true educational freedom.

Ralston finally answers the original question

If you aren't sure what I'm referring to, these previous posts will explain it all: “Ralston calls for a magic tax increase,” “Ralston and taxes and Twitter! Oh my!” and “Watch the magic happen: NPRI responds to Ralston.”

In response to the letter to the editor that Geoffrey Lawrence and I sent to the Las Vegas Sun yesterday, Ralston posted the following on Twitter:

Lack-of-thought tank refuses to acknowledge it proposed new tax, claims I proposed one (!) and whines about criticism. http://bit.ly/hZaur3

Let’s ignore the gratuitous jab and go right to the substance of his comment.

First, as I've written before, NPRI has proposed an expansion of the sales-tax base with a corresponding reduction in the rate — that's an expansion of an existing tax, not the proposal of a new one.

But Ralston’s comment still fails to answer the simple question I asked him in an e-mail last week, in response to his reference in his column to “some form of new business levy that would not crush folks in this economy.” I asked: "What type of tax are you referring to?"

As for Ralston's suggestion that NPRI is falsely claiming he proposed a tax increase? Ralston himself says he "suggested" a business tax in that column.

The good news is that in his next two tweets, Ralston finally answers the original question (which NPRI's letter noted he had not yet answered).

RalstonFlash: All I suggested was "some form" of biz tax that would not crush businesses, just as NPRI did (sales tax on services). What form? Many exist.

RalstonFlash: As for panoply of taxes beyond NPRI's idea to impose new tax, they include franchise taxes, gross receipts (exempt most small biz), more.

Although it took a column, several blog posts and many tweets, I'd like to thank Jon for answering the question.

Now that the specific tax ideas have been identified, NPRI will be able to show the negative impacts they would have on businesses, especially with a shrinking labor force and unemployment above 14 percent.

I was going to begin that discussion in this post, but the evidence I had was pushing the post length towards Bill Simmons' word count, so please look for future posts addressing how Ralston's specific tax suggestions (and others that are being considered) would negatively impact Nevadans and businesses.

Watch the magic happen: NPRI responds to Ralston

Yesterday, liberal political pundit Jon Ralston wrote a column attempting to smear the Nevada Policy Research Institute and suggest that NPRI has an internal philosophical disagreement.

For regular readers of this blog, Ralston's ad hominem attacks didn't come as a surprise, because last Friday we predicted that Ralston would write a "doozy" of a column distorting NPRI's positions in an attempt to avoid answering a simple question.

For further background, Ralston’s column came in response to my post titled “Ralston calls for a magic tax increase.”

Anyway, Ralston's column has led NPRI to send this letter to the editor of the Las Vegas Sun. We've just sent it in, and we'll see if the Sun runs it.

Dear Editor:

It’s ironic that in his Nov. 21 column, Jon Ralston both bemoans the lack of real debate about Nevada’s tax structure and then proceeds to use ad hominem attacks to try to discredit the work of the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

While Mr. Ralston offers praise for the revenue-neutral tax reforms proposed in NPRI’s “One Sound State, Once Again” report, which is designed to, among other objectives, reduce volatility in the Silver State’s tax structure, he is apparently upset that NPRI asked him for clarification about his own idea for a new state business tax.

In a previous column, Mr. Ralston had referred to “a tax increase (some form of new business levy that would not crush folks in this economy).” NPRI contacted Mr. Ralston, asking, “What type of tax are you referring to?” Despite his expressed concern for honest debate, Mr. Ralston has yet to answer this very simple and legitimate question. Instead, in his e-mail response, he dismissed NPRI’s inquiry as “nonsense” and then, in his Nov. 21 column, sought to argue that discord exists among NPRI’s statements.

No such discord exists.

NPRI has consistently maintained that all forms of taxation introduce distortions into economic decision-making and curb long-run economic growth. We recognize that governments are nonetheless compelled to levy taxes in order to finance their operations.

Yet, some tax instruments are inherently more destructive than others and so the choice of tax instrument matters greatly. In our “One Sound State, Once Again” proposal, we evaluate each tax instrument within the objectives of reducing volatility, minimizing tax-induced distortions and compliance costs, and ensuring tax equity.

However, that proposal also calls for limits on state spending and develops the explicit goal of minimizing “the necessarily perverse impact on economic behavior that taxes impose [by] limiting the overall tax burden.”

Apparently attempting to distract from his unwillingness — or inability — to identify the benign “new business levy” to which he had referred, Mr. Ralston posits some logical inconsistency between NPRI’s calls for tax reform and its recognition of the destructive impact of taxes. Again, no such inconsistency exists.

While the primary purpose of the “One Sound State” proposal is to ensure economic efficiency while protecting taxpayers, NPRI recognizes that even the taxes imposed under this proposal — like all taxes — will have “negative consequences.” What’s unique about “One Sound State” is that it is designed explicitly to minimize those consequences.

Mr. Ralston says “thoughtful discussion,” rather than “ideological hackery,” is needed regarding the state budget. Yet, while NPRI has consistently offered “thoughtful discussion” on both the tax and spending sides of the equation, Mr. Ralston himself resorted to ad hominem attacks on NPRI staff.

This is not the “thoughtful discussion” we would have anticipated.

Geoffrey Lawrence and Victor Joecks
Nevada Policy Research Institute

Also, here is the e-mail I originally sent to Ralston asking him what type of tax increase he was referring to, and his reply that didn't even attempt to answer my question.

Ralston and taxes and Twitter! Oh my!

Yesterday I wrote a post poking fun at political pundit Jon Ralston's suggestion that the Legislature is looking at a new tax increase — some form of new business levy — that wouldn't "crush" businesses in this economy.

I had e-mailed him to ask what tax he was referring to, and he sent me a dismissive reply that didn't answer my question.

So I published the post titled, “Ralston calls for a magic tax increase,” which tweaked him for assuming that there's a new business tax increase out there that wouldn't "crush" businesses — which I referred to as a “magic tax increase.” How big would this tax increase be? Ralston didn't put a number on it, but, for reference only, Sen. Horsford has suggested a $1.5 billion tax increase.

Apparently, Ralston didn't enjoy the post, as he tweeted this shortly after it was published.

Conservative narrow-think tank proposes expanding biz tax-- http://bit.ly/bbXSuM --yet criticizes me 4 idea of biz tax. http://bit.ly/amZc5w

I responded on Twitter (join the more than 900 people following NPRI, by the way!), asking him what he was talking about.

NevadaPolicyRI: RT @RalstonFlash narrow-think tank//Big difference between a revenue-neutral expansion of sales tax base (consumption tax) & unknown biz tax

NevadaPolicyRI: @ralstonflash Emailed u to find out what biz tax you meant and u chose not to clarify.

NevadaPolicyRI: @ralstonflash Would u like to clarify now? Our proposal (http://bit.ly/bbXSuM) is still a great idea, happy for all the support it gets

To which he responded:

RalstonFlash: NV narrow-think tank @NevadaPolicyRI says expanding sales tax base is not new tax -- now that takes some thinking! More Sunday in my column.

RalstonFlash: @SteveSebelius Yes, the clever @NevadaPolicyRI suggested I proposed "magic" tax. But it's real magic to propose new one and say you didn't.

Now, not being able to respond to that much misinformation in 140 characters (and wanting you all to be able to join in the fun), here's the deal.

1. I still have no idea what new business tax and tax increase Ralston was referring to. And he, so far, has refused to share. If he was referring to NPRI's tax proposal, One Sound State, great! NPRI welcomes his support.

2. It's doubtful that he was referring to One Sound State, because it never called for a tax increase or a business tax. For those of you who haven't read it (you should), it is a revenue-neutral (read: not a tax increase) proposal to eliminate the modified business tax, eliminate the insurance premium tax and expand the sales-tax base to include services while lowering the rate. This proposal would collect the same amount of taxes as our current system, but do so in a more stable and fair way.

3. The sales tax isn't a new tax! Nevada already has a sales tax. Yes, the sales tax would be expanded to new things, but that's not a proposal for a new tax. It's a proposal for expanding an existing tax while lowering the rate.

4. Also, the sales tax is not a business tax. The sales tax is a consumption tax. A business tax generally refers to taxes like a modified business tax, a gross-receipts tax or a corporate-income tax. If Ralston meant expanding the sales tax when he was talking about a business tax, why didn't he just let me know when I e-mailed him? Why doesn’t he say so now?

5. I'm not sure what this tweet is referring to: "NevadaPolicyRI says expanding sales tax base is not new tax -- now that takes some thinking." Seems like an attempt to change the subject (and see above for the difference between expanding an existing consumption tax and creating a new business tax that is a tax increase).

Anyway, if you enjoy a good disagreement and/or if you're annoyed at seeing NPRI and the ideas of fiscal conservatives/libertarians misrepresented, would you consider sharing this story on Facebook or Twitter?

I encourage you to do this, because nothing would upset liberals more than seeing their efforts lead to the truth spreading among the conservative grassroots.

Also, please consider "Liking" NPRI on Facebook. Because as Benjamin Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

I don't know what Ralston's going to write in his Sunday column, but if it distorts NPRI's proposals and changes the subject as much as his tweets, it's sure to be a doozy. I wonder if he'll find space to mention what kind of business tax he was referring to in his original column.

California stealing Nevada's budget narrative and talking points

So I was reading about California's budget deficit this morning — now $26 billion — and noticed something interesting. If you tweaked the names and the numbers to reflect the Silver State, the whole article could have been about Nevada's current budget situation.

A new governor facing a substantial deficit that will force cuts? Check.

California has sunk back into yet another fiscal crisis, this time facing a $26 billion gap that is posing a major new challenge for the incoming governor, Jerry Brown, and seems almost certain to force deep cuts in a state already reeling from three years of financial turmoil.

State officials bemoaning that government has cut to the bone? Check.

“There’s no more easy stuff to cut,” Susan Kennedy, Mr. Schwarzenegger’s chief of staff, said Monday. “We are cutting into bone now.”

Past leaders using budget gimmicks to close the budget gap? Check.

California has a history of recovering from financial crises, riding the wave of national economic growth to fiscal health, and that is one reason state leaders frequently turn to stopgap solutions intended to push the problem up the road.

Previous reductions in funding to public education, universities and social services and worker furloughs (although the cuts in Nevada have been greatly exaggerated)? Check.

This latest crisis follows three straight budgets characterized by deep cuts in aid to public education, the state university system and social welfare programs, as well as repeated worker furloughs as California has tried, in vain, to find its balance.

Two-thirds requirement for tax and fee increases? Check.

The options on the revenue side of the ledger are constrained by a California voter initiative that requires a two-thirds vote by the Legislature to raise taxes; that two-thirds requirement was extended to fees in another initiative passed this November.

Suggestions that local governments be given more responsibilities to provide services and the ability to raise taxes? Check.

Mr. Steinberg said that given all the restrictions the state faced, the best course of action would be a realignment of state services in a way that would require local governments — which might have more flexibility to raise some taxes — to provide them. He said he thought Mr. Brown would be more receptive to that kind of revamping than Mr. Schwarzenegger.

Aside from budget difficulties, what else do California and Nevada have in common?

Is it their tax structure? No. California has an income tax, corporate income tax and sales tax with some of the highest rates in nation. Nevada only has a sales tax.

Well, if California and Nevada's tax structures are completely different, why are they facing the same budget problems?

As I've written before: It's the spending. Both states have increased inflation-adjusted, per-capita spending by more than 29 percent in the last 15 years.

It doesn't matter whether a state has a sales tax, a personal income tax, a corporate income tax or all three. When states pass unsustainable spending increases year after year, eventually they'll run out of gimmicks to employ in order to avoid deficits. Unsustainable spending increases simply become unsustainable.

Nevada's problems don't stem from a lack of revenue, either. As NPRI fiscal policy analyst Geoffrey Lawrence has noted, organizations as ideologically diverse as the Tax Foundation and the Brookings Institution rank Nevada's combined state and local tax collections per capita 25th-highest and 22nd-highest, respectively, in the nation.

The proof that higher taxes can't solve the problems created by over-spending is literally right next door to Nevada.

The only question left is whether liberals will learn from the example of California — or copy its mistakes in Nevada.

Ralston calls for a magic tax increase

And what is a magic tax increase? A new business tax — one that doesn't have negative impacts.

I believe the key to any revenue package — which probably would have to include a tax decrease (repealing the payroll tax?) with a tax increase (some form of new business levy that would not crush folks in this economy) — is providing political cover for those potential GOP votes. [Emphasis added]

A tax that doesn't hurt or "crush" businesses or individuals with unemployment over 14 percent?

Now why didn't NPRI — or anyone else — think of that? It's magic! Budget problems averted! Oh, wait … and wait again.

Now I honestly have no idea what kind of tax Jon Ralston's referring to.

I e-mailed him and asked him to clarify his statement and received a reply that didn't address the question.

Regardless, there's an interesting trend developing here.

Nevada's liberals are acknowledging the negative impact of raising taxes and the positive benefits of lowering them.

It's not just Ralston. During the campaign I received a mailer from a Democratic incumbent bragging that she had lowered business taxes for 70 percent of Nevada's businesses.

Former assemblywoman and new Senator Sheila Leslie has also warned that allowing the tax hikes to expire will raise business taxes on small businesses (7:40 mark), because of the way the Legislature structured the tax hikes in 2009.

Of course, their implications are right. Lowering taxes in a uniform way has a positive impact on the economy, job growth and businesses, and raising them has negative effects.

As for a tax increase that, in this economy, doesn't "crush" businesses? That would indeed take magic.

Update: Added a link to Ralston's article that I had mistakenly not included with the original post.

Stagflation on the horizon?

Robert Murphy paints an interesting scenario today about how the Fed's monetization of federal government debt - oops, I mean QE2 - could inspire market panic that devolves into stagflation.

No wonder so many notable economists dissent from the Fed's new policy direction.

Where does money come from?

And sorry liberals, "other people" isn't the correct answer.

Watch, learn and enjoy as Jeffrey Tucker of the Mises Institute talks about the origins of money.


The Origins of Money from FEE on Vimeo.

The video, from the Foundation for Economic Education, is long but very informative. Relive your college days and enjoy a great lecture.

Voting with their feet: Low-tax states gain residents from high tax ones

The census happens every ten years and one of the interesting things it shows this year is how people are moving from high-tax and spending states into states with less government.

There are eight states projected to gain at least one Congressional seat. Texas will gain four seats and Florida will gain two. Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington are poised to gain one seat each. The biggest losers will be New York and Ohio – both projected to lose two seats – while Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are on track to lose one seat each.

The average top personal income tax rate among gainers is 116 percent lower than among losers. The total state and local tax burden is nearly one-third lower, as is per capita government spending. In eight of ten losers, workers can be forced to join a union as a condition of employment. In 7 of the 8 gainers, workers are given a choice whether to join or contribute financially to a union.

This is great news and quite a validation for fiscal conservatives, but it should come with a slight warning. People often move away from states once the impacts of liberalism are clear, but it doesn't mean they change their beliefs. If anything conservatives and libertarians are going to have to work even harder in the next ten years to help their new neighbors see the light.

Is payday lending immoral?

ReasonTV makes the case that regulating payday lending out of business would hurt the very people that rich(er) liberals claim to want to help.



Regardless of what you think about payday lending, it's a great reminder that ideas, especially well-intentioned ones proposed by liberals, have unexpected consequences.

Hayek on the unique perspective of Austrian economics

After reading former NPRI contributor Doug French's Mises Institute column today about Hayek's famous "Pretense of Knowledge" speech and how it applies to the contemporary debate over monetary policy, I was struck by a key passage from Hayek's original 1974 lecture. Hayek clearly delineates the key difference between the Austrian School of economics and all other schools of thought when he says:

It seems to me that this failure of the economists to guide policy more successfully is closely connected with their propensity to imitate as closely as possible the procedures of the brilliantly successful physical sciences — an attempt which in our field may lead to outright error.

While Austrian theory, in many cases, leads to conclusions about the appropriateness of particular public policies that are similar to that of the Friedmanites or the public choice theorists, the method of arriving at those conclusions is, for Austrians, dramatically different. The Austrian School is the only school of thought to recognize that the study of economics is a social science for which quantitative theorems might hold true in a general sense but not in an absolute sense. All other schools of thought treat economics as a "hard science" in which professionals can accurately predict future conditions simply by inputing data into an analytic software program.

This approach fails to view the study of economics for what it really is: the study of human action, wherein the actions of every individual are determined by a unique set of circumstances and an entirely unique set of noncomparable preferences and values. When this recognition is the starting point for economic analysis, it quickly becomes clear that the assumptions built into most econometric models are void from the outset. Hence, it is unsurprising when the models fail to accurately predict the impact of particular public policies.

Instead, the Austrian School teaches that the only truths to be known about economics are those that can be derived by logical inferrence or mathematical definition. Human action is based on the "axiom of action" which is that individuals will act in a manner that they believe will bring about their greatest happiness (irrespective of whether they incorrectly choose the means for attaining a specific end). When economic analysis begins with this aprioristic and irrefutable foundation, the conclusions which follow are equally irrefutable provided that the logic or mathematical proofs employed are performed without error. Other schools of thought can never legitimately make this claim because they are based on assumptions, such as the comparison and quantification of individual utility scales, that are fundamentally flawed.

Gansert: No new taxes or fees in Sandoval's budget

Heidi Gansert is the former Assembly minority leader who Governor-elect Brian Sandoval selected as his chief of staff.

Anjeanette Damon interviewed Gansert last week on her "To the Point" show. Damon got right to the point and asked Gansert if Sandoval's budget would include any fee increases.

Gansert was very clear in her response. She twice specifically said that Sandoval's budget would not contain any tax or fee increases.

Damon: Do you anticipate that fee increases will be part of the budget you submit?

Gansert: I don't believe that fee increases or taxes will be part of this budget. I know they won't.

And just a few minutes later.

Gansert: Everything's on the table except for the taxes and the fees.

See for yourself in the clip below. Gansert's comments are at 3:30 and 5:38.

Enjoy: ‘I'm a Denier’ music video skewers global warming

Is there a better way to celebrate the news that Al Gore's Chicago Climate Exchange is no longer going to be in the business of carbon trading than with a hilarious video skewering global warming alarmists?

I don't think so. Enjoy.

NPRI and the I-Team examine reimbursement claims

George Knapp interviewed me last night regarding what appear to be excessive travel and meal reimbursement claims within the governor's office. I've posted the interview below.

Clinger: Nevada's projected deficit is $1 billion

The truth doesn't get clearer than this.

State Budget Director Andrew Clinger said Tuesday that Nevada faces a $1 billion revenue shortfall. He expects that about $5.4 billion will be available for the next two-year state government budget, compared with $6.4 billion in the current budget that ends June 30.

Many of Nevada's top reporters and journalists have already accurately reported on Nevada's budget situation. For those who haven't, this clear statement from Clinger, the state's budget director, should set the record straight.

And props to Clinger for coming out with a clear and accurate statement on the state's budget situation. I had criticized him previously for causing the confusion over the budget numbers, but statements like this — true and direct — are exactly what's needed to set the record straight and correct the narrative.

Having the truth out there doesn't mean the hard work is over, though. Fiscal conservatives now need to make the case that it's better to decrease spending by about 16 percent and live within our means than to increase spending by up to 30 percent and continue Nevada's pattern of unsustainable spending increases.

Veterans Day: Thank you to all who served

Bonus: Soldiers singing the "Some say freedom is free, but I tend to disagree" cadence.

Sandoval hitting all the right notes on the state budget

Newspapers around the state reported yesterday that governor-elect Brian Sandoval is "very optimistic" about balancing the budget without raising taxes.

"The numbers look very good in terms of our being able to cut. It is not going to be a one-size-fits-all (cut). This is going to be a thoughtful discussion, a thoughtful approach in balancing the budget," Sandoval said.

While I have a trust-but-verify attitude when it comes to policymakers, this isn't the only thing Sandoval's said so far that is very encouraging. Last week Sandoval was interview by Anjeanette Damon on her show “To the Point.” On the show, Sandoval not only gave a spirited defense of a no-new-taxes budget, but he also articulated why Nevada doesn't have a $3 billion deficit. (Discussion starts at the 2:20 mark.)

Update: I'm having problems with the embedded video. Go here for the video or read the transcript below.

Damon quoting John Oceguera: “When the governor talks to the budget office, the fiscal guys, it’ll take 20 minutes to realize what the problem is. When you take $3 billion out, even hard-core Republicans cannot stomach what those cuts are.”

Damon: So are you going to be able to stomach the cuts you're going to have to make?

Sandoval: I have a lot of respect for the speaker and we're going to work together on this. And that's his figure. That $3 billion figure is built on roll-ups from the last budget and that's not the way we can budget. We have to budget from the amount of money we have to spend, not the amount of money we'd like to spend.

Damon: But you still think the state will be able to function going back to 2007 spending levels?

Sandoval: Absolutely. It's been clear — our state population has actually decreased. Enrollment has remained very steady and is actually decreasing, so I'm very confident we can do it.

What's important here is that Sandoval didn't just answer her question. He redefined the question to remove a false premise — that Nevada has a $3 billion hole. As Sandoval notes (and NPRI and many of the state's top political reporters have noted), the $3 billion figure is based on a spending increase of $2 billion, and Nevada's budget deficit is only about $1 billion.

By removing the false premise from Oceguera's statement, Sandoval is not only able to accurately describe the budgetary reality, he is able to make the reasonable case that Nevada needs to live within its means: "We have to budget from the amount of money we have to spend, not the amount of money we'd like to spend."

Why is it so important that Sandoval is doing this? Because, despite the delusions of grandeur I have about this blog, only a high-profile elected official, like Sandoval, is going to be able to continually set the record straight about Nevada's budget situation and explain to the general public how Nevada needs to trim its budget by about 20 percent and not increase spending by $2 billion.

And this is going to have to be done again and again once the Left starts claiming that believers in limited government don't care about education or want to hurt disabled people.

As Chris Christie has shown in New Jersey, a charismatic governor has the ability to appeal directly to the people and explain things like how a baseline budget and roll-up costs work. This kind of appeal and leadership can thwart the typical lies of the Left and the soon-to-be-forthcoming cries of "Draconian" budget cuts.

Can I guarantee that Brian Sandoval is going to hold the line on taxes? No.

But if he intends to, he's off to a great start.

Murphy on dollar

Robert Murphy of the Mises Institute issues a warning today about the possibility of a pending collapse of the dollar in a very interesting article.

If taxes solved budget problems, California wouldn't be Lindsay Lohan

A great piece from the Wall Street Journal on how screwed up California's fiscal situation is.

Listen up, California. The other 48 states — your cousin New York excluded — are sick of your bratty arrogance. You're the Lindsay Lohan of states: a prima donna who once showed some talent but is now too wasted to do anything with it.

After enjoying ephemeral highs and spending binges, you suffer crashes that culminate in brief, unsuccessful stints in rehab. This cycle repeats itself every five to 10 years, as the rest of the country looks on with a mixture of horror and amusement. We'd feel sorry for you if you didn't constantly flip us the bird.

Instead, we're making bets on how long it will be before your next meltdown. Oh, wait — you're already melting down. Opinion Journal's Allysia Finley argues that California is suffering from spending addiction like starlet Lindsay Lohan.

You've racked up nearly $70 billion in general obligation debt, and that doesn't include your $500 billion unfunded pension liability. Your own analysts predict you'll face a hole of at least $80 billion over the next four years.

And what caused California's fiscal problems? Did California fall off the fiscal cliff because of a reluctance to tax — the same reluctance Nevada's leftists often accuse Nevada of having? Not hardly.

According to the Tax Foundation, California has the fourth-highest income tax rates in the country (top rate of 10.55 percent), the eighth-highest corporate income tax (8.84 percent), the highest sales tax in the nation (8.25 percent) and property taxes that are slightly below average.

What's the cause of California's fiscal woes? Unsustainable government spending.

The next time a leftist tells you that Nevada needs more taxes, remind him of the shape that California — or Lindsay Lohan — is in.

Horsford, Democrats resorting to Jedi mind tricks on taxes

When I heard that Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford had changed the name of the Senate Taxation Committee to the "Revenue Committee," this immediately came to mind.



Assembly Speaker-to-be John Oceguera wants to pull off an even bigger Jedi mind trick, though:

Speaker John Oceguera wouldn’t reveal the name of the lower house panel previously known as the Taxation Committee. All he would say is that it won’t be called “tax” or “revenue.”

While Nevadans aren't as clueless as the faceless Stormtroopers in “Star Wars,” semantics and words do matter.

If believers in limited government are interested in combating this kind of doublespeak, they should not only continue to refer to the committees as “Taxation Committees,” but should also point how the Democratic leadership is trying to fool the public.

Something like the "Revenue committee to increase your taxes and hope you aren't paying attention" might work.

Sandoval, Oceguera agree: End teacher tenure

As teacher quality is "the most important school-related factor influencing student achievement," ending teacher tenure is a no-brainer for anyone looking to improve student achievement in Nevada.

Currently, teachers in Nevada can get tenure in as little as one year of teaching. And once a bad teacher has tenure, it's much more difficult to fire him or her for poor performance — even if the teacher does a poor job of educating hundreds of children.

The good news is that two of the three most powerful men in state government this year — Governor-elect Brian Sandoval and Assembly Speaker-to-be John Oceguera — have come out in favor of eliminating teacher tenure.

From Sandoval's education plan:

Bring Private Sector Thinking to School Staffing
End Teacher Tenure, Set Aside Funds to Reward Good Teachers

The current performance evaluation system for teachers and principals is out-of-date and rewards endurance over performance. With recent changes to Nevada law requiring the use of student achievement data in evaluations, we have an opportunity to modernize the entire system in ways that reward the best, inspire the average to improve, and dismiss those who are failing.

Under Brian’s plan, a majority of teacher and principal evaluations will be based on student achievement. Salary schedules based on time served and longevity stipends will no longer be allowed – by statutory change, we will bring an end to teacher tenure; these funds will instead be used to fund a pay-for-performance system.

From Oceguera's campaign page on education:

Eliminate tenure. School districts must recruit and retain the best teachers possible, and those teachers should be rewarded for success. School districts need to weed out ineffective teachers.

Oceguera gave more details to the Las Vegas Sun in September after he announced his support for this position.

Oceguera, in a statement, said, “We have great teachers in our state, but we hear from parents and principals that there are those who are not measuring up and should not be in the classroom.”

He called for a “fair but expedient process for getting inadequate teachers out of the classroom.”

And why is this necessary? Because the Clark County School District fires less than .12 percent of its teachers each year for poor performance.

But the Clark County Education Association, which represents teachers in the Clark County School District, said 20 teachers did not have their contracts renewed two years ago for reasons that would include poor performance. Last year 19 teachers did not have their contracts renewed.

There are roughly 17,000 teachers in Clark County.

From putting Nevada's checkbook online to eliminating teacher tenure, there are many issues that appear to have bi-partisan support in the next session.

Citizens should hope that in these cases, our elected officials’ campaign promises match up with their actions.

Speaker-to-be Oceguera makes the liberal case for government transparency

Image from AdamZyglis.com

As a proponent of open and transparent government, the Nevada Policy Research Institute has often said that transparency should have broad, bi-partisan support. Why?

While both sides should embrace transparency, because citizens have a right to know how the government is spending their money, each side of the political spectrum has its own reasons to promote transparency.

For conservatives, it's a way to expose and eliminate wasteful government spending.

For liberals, it's a way to show that government is spending money efficiently and deserves more money.

While conservatives in Nevada have been working on transparency issues for years (albeit not as quickly as citizens deserve), it's great to finally see a liberal Democrat, Nevada's next Assembly Speaker John Oceguera, making the case for putting Nevada's checkbook online. (At the two-minute mark)



Now while Oceguera is making the liberal case for transparency and I don't agree with many of his reasons, his conclusion is correct — Nevada's citizens deserve to have Nevada's checkbook online. The point is that liberals and conservatives can and should support transparency reforms — even if their reasons for supporting it differ.

Given that 13 Republican legislators have already supported putting Nevada's checkbook online, this should be a bipartisan effort.

Las Vegas police union: Oh, those secret benefits

Remember how leftist politicians say again and again that government has cut to the bone?

Here's just another example of how their rhetoric doesn't square with reality.

Police work can be difficult, dangerous, and seriously inconvenient, so the Metropolitan Police Department pays extra for jobs that are especially so. Some officers draw extra pay for the danger or expertise their jobs require; many get paid extra for working nights or graveyard shifts.

However, seven executives of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, who work nights and weekends only when necessary and who are not essential in protecting the public, for years have received both assignment pay and shift pay. Although they are paid at public expense, the arrangement was never publicly disclosed until written into the last police employee contract, and then only partially.

Oh it gets better. Taxpayers are paying the salaries of these executives to lobby the government for salary and benefit increases.

Even though the union officials are the department's adversary in contract talks, disciplinary and policy matters and in lobbying elected officials for better pay and benefits, their regular wages are paid by the department, and in¬directly by taxpayers, rather than from union dues. Many large police departments pay union officials directly as Las Vegas does, but not all.

Yet, although union executives have received the extra 12 percent since 2001, the union contract never mentioned it until last year when an assignment-pay provision was written in for the first time. The 4 percent shift pay for union executives has never yet been mentioned in the contract, even the current one.

Local government experts said it's inappropriate to exclude the extra pay from the contract where the public, media, and other police officers can see it.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

Reporting on the budget: Vogel does it accurately, Damon doesn't

It's been nearly two months since the Nevada Policy Research Institute exposed the claim that Nevada faces a $3 billion projected budget deficit as a myth. The $3 billion claim assumes a 30 percent spending increase. Nevada really faces about a 20 percent budget deficit of $1.2 billion - $1.5 billion.

Since then, Andrew Clinger, the state budget director, has clearly stated the truth about Nevada's budget situation on Jon Ralston's “Face to Face” program. Clinger said, "What you're talking about and what NPRI is talking about is the current two-year budget when we look at general fund appropriations ... So when you look at just the general fund appropriations we're going from [$]6.4 [billion] to [$]8.2 [billion]. So we're increasing appropriations $1.8 billion."

The Agency Request Budgets, released on Oct. 15, show that the agencies want to spend $8.34 billion — even more than Clinger stated or NPRI originally reported. Write on Nevada has also continued to highlight the truth about Nevada's budget situation.

As a result of this information, many of Nevada's top journalists and reporters have reported accurately on Nevada's budget situation.

Unfortunately, there are still a few journalists who are reporting inaccurate information, including Anjeanette Damon in today's Las Vegas Sun.

Indeed, some speculate Raggio will hold sway over the budget as lawmakers grapple with a $3 billion gap between current spending and projected tax revenue.

This is inaccurate. Current spending is $6.4 billion. Projected tax revenue is $5.2 billion. Only by government math does that equal a $3 billion gap.

It doesn't matter if you can cite a misleading article from six months ago, either. That statement is factually inaccurate. I don't know if Damon doesn't understand this, chooses to ignore it, is just unwilling to drop an old and discredited narrative or something else. In any event, the information she’s putting forward is inaccurate. It's unfortunate, too, because, when she's not reporting inaccurate information, her stories and columns are quite enjoyable.

What makes this mistake all the more glaring, however, is how aptly and accurately Ed Vogel of the Las Vegas Review-Journal described the budget situation today.

The new governor is expected to try to balance the budget on existing revenues, about $5.2 billion over the next two years, which would be about a 20 percent cut from current spending.

There it is — the truth. Recently, I credited Vogel with the best two-paragraph description yet of Nevada's budget situation, and I'd like to add to that — the above is the best one-sentence description of Nevada's budget situation, so far.

You'll note here that the truth doesn't end the debate; it just accurately describes the facts.

Fiscal conservatives now need to make the case that it's better to decrease spending by about 20 percent and live within our means than to increase spending by 30 percent and continue Nevada's pattern of unsustainable spending increases.

While it's been encouraging to see Governor-elect Brian Sandoval start to make this case, it'd also be nice to see the few remaining political reporters, like Damon, who haven't accurately reported on the state budget correctly begin to report the facts.

Hayek and Keynes: The Re-mixxxx!

The actors appearing in the now famous Hayek-Keynes battle rap made an appearance at The Economist magazine's recent Buttonwood Gathering and added a follow-on to their rap dialogue debating opposing economic theories. As Mario Rizzo of NYU puts it, "The Great Debate is still Keynes versus Hayek."

The original rap video is here.

The appearance at The Economist's conference is here.

How the TransparentNevada survey respondents fared

With the dust beginning to settle on the election, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at TransparentNevada's transparency survey and see how those who responded did.

Here's how it broke down:

Prior to this election, we sent surveys to all 159 candidates running for a legislative or constitutional office in Nevada.

Of those 159 surveys, we received 66 replies.

Of the 66 candidates who replied, 16 won and 51 lost.

The winners were John Hambrick, Scott Hammond, Cresent Hardy, Mark Sherwood, Melissa Woodbury, Pat Hickey, Ira Hansen, Tom Grady, Pete Livermore, Michael Roberson, Barbara Cegavske, Elizabeth Halseth, Don Gustavson, Kim Wallin, Kate Marshall and Brian Krolicki.

Of the 16 candidates who won, seven were incumbents, seven were running for open seats and two defeated incumbents.

Interestingly, in both cases where an incumbent was defeated in the Legislature (Mark Sherwood over Ellen Spiegel and Michael Roberson over Joyce Woodhouse), the winners replied to our survey while the losers didn't. While many factors affect the outcome of a race, both races were relatively close (the Sherwood-Spiegel race was decided by 407 votes) and every vote made a difference. Who knows what would have happened electorally if Woodhouse and Spiegel had chosen to reply?

Many thanks to every candidate who took the time to let the voters know their position on transparency issues.

Now voters will get to see if these elected officials stick to the positions they expressed on the survey.

(Cross-posted from TransparentNevada)

End of an era: Raggio out as Republican Senate minority leader

Twitter's been abuzz with rumors that Senate Republicans were going to replace Sen. William Raggio as minority leader. And now it's been confirmed. Via @NVNewsBureau:

Sen McGinness new minority leader. No vote by GOP caucus. Raggio withdraws name.

It appears that Raggio's endorsement of Harry Reid and his past support for tax increases prompted the change.

No doubt there will be a lot of political implications in this, especially since Raggio has removed himself from the Senate Finance Committee and has stepped away from helping to create the state's budget.

If you're interested in following this story, I'd recommend following @RalstonFlash, @NVNewsBureau, @AnjeanetteDamon and @ElizCrum on Twitter.

Horsford, state Democrats' budget plan: We got nothing, you go first

Seriously.

Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, refrained from making recommendations for Sandoval's upcoming budget proposal, saying he wants to see the numbers first.

"It is the governor's job to present the Legislature with a budget," Horsford said. "I will comment on it at that time."

And there's more.

"Our job is to react first to the budget presented us by the governor," Horsford said after speaking with Sandoval.

"I am encouraged. He is a governor who will show up to work every day. He has pledged cooperation with our caucus. It is incumbent on him to provide us with a budget and a plan and vision to move our state forward."

So during the election season, Sen. Horsford said there should be $1.5 billion in budget cuts, but now he doesn't want to identify them? Hmmmmmm.

This is most likely a cynical political move. By waiting for Sandoval to produce a balanced budget — one Sandoval promises won't contain tax increases — Horsford and the Democrats can attack him for cutting education and wanting to kill children.

Of course, the majority of these "cuts" will actually be unapproved spending increases, but explaining how the budget the Democrats have in mind would increase state spending by 30 percent is more difficult than just asserting that conservatives/libertarians hate children, education, polar bears, etc. ...

There's also considerable irony in this strategy. Does everyone remember how liberals bashed Republicans on the federal level repeatedly over the past two years for not having a plan to govern and for just being "the party of no"? And they did this despite Republicans producing plans and introducing legislation on many major issues — including health care, the budget and energy.

So will Democrats in Nevada get anywhere near the same media roasting that Republicans did over this issue?

I'm not holding my breath.

About last night

As Victor noted yesterday, we at NPRI tend to steer clear of electoral politics. But we also know many of our readers and followers have a keen interest in what goes on in the political arena.

With this in mind, here’s a rundown of what happened in last night’s elections here in the Silver State. Obviously, I won’t be able to touch on every single race, but I’ll try to cover the most significant ones.

• In what was probably the most closely watched race in the entire country, Democrat Harry Reid defeated his Republican challenger, Sharron Angle, to hold onto his U.S. Senate seat. It’s hard to call the re-election of the Senate majority leader a surprise, but most of the polling leading up to Election Day had Angle clinging to a small lead. Reid won by about 6 percentage points.
  
  
• Dr. Joe Heck, a Republican, pulled off a narrow win over incumbent Democrat Dina Titus to capture Nevada’s third congressional district. Heck won by less than a percentage point.
  
  
• Heck’s win produces the only change in Nevada’s congressional delegation, as Democrat Shelley Berkley (CD-1) and Republican Dean Heller (CD-2) easily won re-election to their respective House seats. Nevada’s representation in Washington, D.C., remains pretty evenly split: three Republicans and two Democrats.
  
  
• Nevada’s statewide constitutional offices saw very little change. In fact, not one of them switched parties, and only one will even see a new face. That would be governor-elect Brian Sandoval, the Republican, who beat Democrat Rory Reid by about 12 percentage points. Sandoval will succeed the current Republican governor, Jim Gibbons, whom he beat in the primary.
  
  
• Incumbents won in the rest of the statewide constitutional-office races: Lieutenant Governor Brian Krolicki (R), Secretary of State Ross Miller (D), State Treasurer Kate Marshall (D), State Controller Kim Wallin (D) and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto (D).
  
  
• Republicans picked up one seat in the Nevada Senate, as Mike Roberson beat incumbent Democrat Joyce Woodhouse by about 4 percentage points in Clark County District 5. Republicans held onto all of their Senate seats, including two Clark County seats that Democrats had contested strongly: District 8, where Barbara Cegavske was re-elected, and District 9, where Elizabeth Halseth kept Dennis Nolan’s seat in the GOP column. Democrats now have just a one-seat advantage (11 to 10) in the Senate.
  
  
• The Assembly races saw two Republican gains: Mark Sherwood topped incumbent Democrat Ellen Spiegel in District 21, and Pete Livermore beat Democrat Robin Williamson in an open-seat contest in District 40. The Republicans held all of their seats, closing the Democrats’ advantage in the Assembly to 26-16.
  
  
• While Democrats still control both legislative chambers, they failed to secure a two-thirds super-majority in either. This is significant because any tax increases must be passed by two-thirds of both the Assembly and the Senate, and so Republicans have the numbers to block any tax hikes during the 2011 Legislative Session. Of course, that’s not to say some Republicans won’t break ranks and give the Democrats the votes they need to raise taxes. If that does happen, it won’t be the first time.
  
  
• Supreme Court Justices James Hardesty and Ronald Parraguirre, both of whom ran unopposed, were re-elected.
  

For full results (including outcomes on the ballot questions), check out SilverState2010.com.

Harrah's pressuring employees in Senate race

A very interesting story regarding Nevada's US Senate race was broken this morning by Elizabeth Crum of the National Review.

According to the story, Harrah's has been coordinating with the Reid campaign and the Culinary Union to provide shuttle services so that Harrah's employees could be herded in to vote. In addition, upper-level management is requiring mid-level supervisors to file reports on any employee who hasn't voted explaining why the employee hasn't voted. Internal emails also indicate how employees are to vote, stating, "Waking up to the defeat of Harry Reid Nov. 3 will be devastating for our industry’s future."

Obviously, this type of pressure exerted by an employer over employees carries tremendous leverage in forcing the political speech of those employees. This story (and the supporting documents) are well worth a read.

Where to get election results

Election season is an interesting time in the think tank world. Obviously, elections are dominating the political landscape and everyone's attention, but as a non-profit research organization, the Nevada Policy Research Institute can't endorse, support or oppose any candidate or ballot measure.

This is why Write on Nevada hasn't been providing predictions on the elections and has only referred to the campaigns in passing.

But as the elections are obviously huge news, I wanted to provide you with a list of sites to get the latest breaking election results.

SilverState2010.com: This is the secretary of state's site that will have results from the local and state races across Nevada.

Here are the election-results pages of Nevada's counties. The results for smaller counties can be viewed at SilverState2010.com.

Clark County
Douglas County
Elko County
Washoe County

And what are elections without pundits? Here is where you can catch some of Nevada's top political personalities and reporting.

Elizabeth Crum at Battle '10
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Las Vegas Sun
Reno Gazette-Journal
Jon Ralston on Twitter
Casey and Heather of KDOX
Heidi Harris and KDWN
News page at KXNT

I know there are many more pundits out there, so if I didn't include your favorite, be sure to add them in the comments. Also if you're feeling bold — make a prediction. We'll see how accurate you were tomorrow.

ReasonTV at the Stewart-Colbert rally

In response to Glenn Beck's August rally in D.C., comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert held a rally of their own last Saturday. This is what ReasonTV saw there.