Archive for category Nevada
Other States Poach Nevada’s Golden Opportunity
Posted by Tom in Environment, Homeland Security, Nevada, State Finances, Terrorism, Yucca Mountain on January 6, 2011
Nevada had better watch out, other states like Texas see jobs and revenue in nuclear sites. While it is true that Nevada has the only federal statutory designation as a repository for spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, Texas now has decided to accept low-level waste from 36 states. Today’s WSJ sets it out well in Texas Welcomes Nuclear Discards.
Strange but Nevada has not seen the money, jobs, industry and research that can come with the current monopoly it has via Yucca Mountain on temporary storage of spent fuel. A group called Nevadans For Carbon Free Energy, http://NV4CFE.org, has developed the concept of an energy park that would provide temporary storage, develop reprocessing and recycling, and eventually grow into power generation. The benefits to the state include jobs, state revenue, and money for the residents along the lines of the Alaska Permanent Fund.
It’s worth serious consideration given the unemployment and budget deficits. Here’s a short video from their website:
Federal-State Downward Spiral is Intractable
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Constitution, Economics, Federalism, Government Regulation, Nevada, State Finances, Taxation on December 8, 2010
In theory, the depression-vintage, federal-state unemployment insurance program was supposed to build reserves in good years so those reserves could be paid out in years of high unemployment. Like other federal government programs it doesn’t work that way.
Randy York called our attention this morning to a Reno Gazette Journal item announcing a 50% increase in the unemployment insurance rates paid by Nevada employers for each employee, $180 on average. On top of that the federal tax will increase by $21 to $77 per average employee; this to cover interest on Nevada’s debt to the federal government with the current balance at $579 million but growing by $300 million in 2011! So Cindy Jones the administrator of the Nevada Employment Security Division argues the necessity, though strangely she is supported by people in the Chamber of Commerce.
Randy analogizes this to “spending our way out of debt,” arguing that the new mantra is that “we can tax our way back to a healthy business environment and lower unemployment.” What are they thinking! Jerry O’Driscoll says the “unemployment benefits have turned into long-term welfare.” Joe Morabito points out that even Denmark cut the benefit duration down to two years and only then did people find work! Indeed, there is a significant amount of economic thought that maintains the unemployment benefits have the unintended effect of extending the duration of unemployment.
The consequences, unintended or otherwise, here in Nevada will be to increase unemployment, close businesses, and frighten California businesses that would have otherwise settled here upon their left coast exits. Note too, this is at a time when Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation.
Now this is only one federal-state tie. There are others in education, medicaid, environment, highways, airports, federal land management, energy, you name it. The relationships involve grants with strings, funding with local tax requirements, joint funding, and unfunded mandates. The major state budget deficits center on medicaid and education both involve federal programs.
I wonder how well off the states would be without all this federal “help?” Missouri, my home state, for instance, has no illegal immigration problem to speak of because the voters designated English as the official language and in another action required law enforcement officers to verify immigration status. Illegals have no mandated access to welfare like food stamps or healthcare. State action. Problem avoided or solved! Now I don’t want to seem flippant, but I wonder how the economy would improve if states took over unemployment insurance and severely limited its scope and duration?
Now consider the federal-state partnership in this downward spiral. That lopsided, unconstitutionally intended relationship is at the heart of the problems. The states have ceded control of problems that they should more appropriately handle. And the federal government has too much control of things it has no business being in in the first place. Our federal system is upside-down and likely to remain so until we restore some sense in the citizenry that we are a republic composed of sovereign state and the citizens thereof, from whence all political power and responsibility derive.
So my take: return election of the senators to the states, preclude federal bailout of spendthrift states, and provide a bankruptcy mechanism for states to legally and politically extricate themselves from their prior unsustainable excesses. Some of them in fact owed to the federal government!
Just a thought!
November Reno Hayek Dinner
Our thanks go to Chuck Baird for an outstanding presentation last evening on the problems with union law in this country. Now unions are dominant in the public sector thanks to John F. Kennedy’s establishing them in 1961 and weak in the private sector thanks to basic economics. Federal labor law controls the private sector unions and federal public unions and state laws control all state public employee unions.
Basically, the Roosevelt labor law is unfair to individual workers. They are forced to be represented by a union they don’t vote for. In essence, forced into an election that otherwise would not pertain at common law. They give up excellence in exchange for mediocrity, no, less than mediocrity, they give it up for the lowest common denominator. Perhaps they are forced to give it up by peer pressure, in the strongest sense of the term. They are forced to pay dues under the theory that the union is benefiting them, whether or not it is. There is forced mandatory good faith bargaining on whatever the union bosses want. In short, labor wins and the law is biased.
The Government Employee Unions, (GEUs), are in an unholy, incestuous alliance with their employers. They “bargain” and get wage and salary increases and exorbitant benefits in exchange for votes. There is no competition to keep them honest. There is no competition or profit motive to keep the employers honest. It’s a relationship made in hell. In effect, they sit on the same side of the bargaining table and then hire their own bosses.
It’s gotta stop! Voluntary unionism is the answer. See: “Toward a Free-Market Union Law,”www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj30n1/cj30n1-12.pdf
We also had a briefing, last evening, from Randy York on the results of our Nevada state fundraising activities. Of the 11 candidates we supported 8 were elected which helped retain the Republican super minority in both houses of the legislature. This one-third minority is necessary to block the tax part of the tax and spend Democrats! The breakdown: Senate: 11 Democrats and 10 Republicans for a pickup of 1. House: 26 Democrats and 16 Republicans for a pickup of 2. Sadly some good people lost, but we’ll make up for that in 2012.
Randy also briefed on NV4CFE. In view of Reid’s re-election and his opposition to real jobs in Nevada (he likes green subsidized jobs that a free market will not support), we need to get to the public and the congressional representatives of the 34 states that have nuclear waste waiting, behind NV3CFE’s Yucca Business Park proposal. We also need to get to interested industry behing reasonable solutions. It’s full speed ahead on all those efforts.
Finally, we had an exciting presentation from John Killoran and Hawley MacClean on the Reno Tahoe Olympic Bid for the 2022 Winter Games. This was a preview of a more detailed presentation they will give in the spring. They advertised one hell-of-a-lot of benefits in excess of the costs needed to pull this off. The economics, I’m sure, will be tested in the full presentation.
I have had great reports from those who attended last evening and want to again thank our speakers. We are dark dinner-wise for December and January. On February 15th we will have Greg Casey president of BIPAC and a former Sergeant at Arms of the United States Senate as our speaker. Then, on March 15th we will have Ty Cobb who after distinguished military service worked in the Reagan White House reporting to the President as part of the National Security Council.
Adult Supervision From State Governors
Posted by Tom in Centrally Managed Economy, Federalism, Fiscal Policy, Nevada, State Finances on November 12, 2010
Thank God, we have leaders, in the states mind you, that can say no to the drug pushers, Obama, Pelosi, Reid and the Democrats.These state leaders, the incoming Wisconsin and Ohio Governors are refusing federal stimulus money for hight speed rails.
High speed rail is another example of a federal boondoggle that is uneconomic. Reid wanted a maglev from Vegas to LA until he needed some political power in his recent race and cut a deal with turncoat Republican Sig Rogich. Reid’s maglev got dropped, Reid got endorsed, and Sig got Reid’s backing and your tax dollars for what? Desert Express a slower train between Vegas and LA! Hopefully Brian Sandoval, the newly elected Republican Governor of Nevada will have the same intelligence and spine that Ohio’s John Kasich and Wisconsin’s Scott Walker had in turning down the federal dollars.
What we really need in this country is for more governors to show that governments can be run effectively for the people. Federalism will work and the states should have more not less authority to govern. The corollary is that the federal government should have less.
There are simply too many unfunded federal mandates from Washington to the states. Kasich and Walker realize that the high-speed rail projects are nothing more than another form of federal burden on the states. No wonder state budgets are under stress. See Mike Tobin’s Fox News item.
The last thing this country needs is another blood-sucking AmTrack!
Soros Buys Judges….It’s so much cheaper than legislatures!
Interesting example of the judicial merit selection process is highlighted in the Weekend WSJ, Iowa’s Total Recall. It describes Iowa voters total rejection of the three state supreme court justices up for “retention” in an election under that state’s Missouri-like non-partisan court plan. This is a plan like the one George Soros was pushing in Nevada in which judges are appointed by the governor after being recommended by a pannel of lawyers then years later are “retained” or “recalled” by the voters.
Seems that the Iowa voters didn’t cotton to the unanimous supreme court ruling that overturned a state law defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Let’s see, Iowa has been a state since 1846, that’s 163 years. In that time there have been numerous decisions related to marriage and never before has there been any question about what marriage is. The common sense voters recognize this so it natural that they resent an unelected court legislating something different.
Of course, the liberals howled at this “misuse of the judicial retention vote” in which all three justices on the ballot were fired. In reality it was the voters expressing rejection of judicial activism, judicial legislation.
Now Nevada voters should take pride in their sound rejection of Soros’ similar plan for Nevada. Nevada will still elect its judges, something the lawyers don’t like. The lawyers would much prefer a back room group of them picking the judicial candidates for the governor’s appointment. I would much prefer a public election where the public can see what’s going on and who is donating to whom.
Ya see, lawyers are smarter than we unwashed masses, particularly trial lawyers. They like to control legislatures so there are no limits placed on damages or on their contingency fees. This is the reason medical malpractice insurance premiums are so high. This is on reasen the costs of medical services are so high.
Now Obama and the Democrats get money from the trial lawyers, a lot of money. So you will note well that Obamacare has no caps or limits on medical malpractice damages or legal fees related thereto. Thus, one of the great cost generators in medical service delivery today, defensive medicine, continues unabated. All this thanks to Obama, Pelosi, and Reid.
Soros’s motivation for sponsoring “Justice at Stake” is simply to promote more liberal, progressive judicial legislation. Where he can’t own the Republican controlled state legislatures, he can have another leftist vehicle if he can own the state courts. Nevada voters should take pride in rejecting Soros’s attempt to buy the judges using the trial lawyers as “superior voters.”
Secret Selection of Judges?
I’m from the “show me” state, the state that led the nation in so called “reform” of judicial selection. The “Missouri Plan” became the model for many states. That type plan is now being put to the Nevada voters. You’ve probably seen the commercials in favor of this plan with Sandra Day O’Cconner.
Did you know that those commercials were funded by the rent-seeking leftist, George Soros. This billionaire who counts Obama as his employee is left of Stalin. But because of his leftist political connections in power, Obama being one, is a multi-billionaire. (Study his Brazil oil intersts!) So he can afford to give a measly two million to NPR with strings attached to cover state progressive issues. You see, the progressives have decided that they don’t quite own the judiciary in this country. They are free to make political deals, money deals, with the legislative and executive branches, but they don’t quite have the judges, yet!
How could they better do that but by making the process secret? How better than to sell secrecy to the public but by letting knowledgeable TRIAL LAWYERS recommend those to be selected?
In my earlier days I practiced trial and appellate law in Missouri, was legally licensed in California, and as a layman was chairman of Nevadians Judicial Information Committee. In that latter role I was often asked about judicial selection processes. My answer was that the public election process while not perfect was at least public. That is, it is not secret.
Contrary to their opinions of themselves, lawyers are not smarter than everyone else. They are not above the law. What they know about judicial selection they should inform the public of. In fact, they do, there are public judicial evaluation studies which bar associations publish at election time.
Today’s WSJ post on the Soros role on the issue, Soros Bets on Nevada, is worth the read. Its concluding line: “Nevada voters should send a message that their judiciary can’t be bought.”
Now, I don’t want anyone to think that George Soros is not smart. His media voice, NPR, fired Juan Williams today for no apparent reasonable reason, but for getting out of line with the liberal agenda. Soros knows where the power is. Who can fault him for his rent-seeking behavior. He, even better than Al Gore and his environmentalists, has profited from his knowledge. And, he has made billions by investing wisely, IN POLITICIANS!
Transparent Nevada, an NPRI Jewel
If you look to the right side of this page, you see our BLOGROLL and on that you see Nevada Policy Research Institute, a public policy think tank based in Las Vegas. I was formerly on its advisory board and can attest to the excellent work it produces.
One such public service is “Transparent Nevada.” This website publishes the most current available information on: salaries, official opinion, contracts, congressional voting, and finance reports for the state and its municipal subdivisions. It also has a blog on treating current NV topics. The home page ulr is: http://transparentnevada.com.
Perhaps the most hits are directed to the salaries page. We’ve heard of Bell California and the outrage generated by exorbitant public salaries. Well, we have pretty rich salaries in Nevada. And as we know the salaries are only the tip of the iceberg, the rich pension benefits will leave our grandchildren with unsustainable taxes to pay for the gross unfunded liabilities related to those pensions. Here’s sample of the salaries data:
Of course, it goes without saying that public employee salaries and benefits far exceed the salaries and benefits in the private sector. The private sector’s taxes pay those rich salaries. Unfortunate truths are that: there are no checks and balances on these salaries, no market efforts at efficiency, and no constitutional efforts to preclude public employees from participating in the Nevada legislature. Over 50% of NV legislators are public employees or their family members!
I heartedly recommend your support of NPRI.
August Reno Hayek Meeting: Nevada Hurting
I am late in thanking Randy York for the excellent discussion of Nevada’s deficit difficulties. Randy as president of the NV Manufacturers Association well knows the gravity of the over spending over the last several years and the temptation to add new taxes so that it can continue. Those potential taxes whether corporate income, gross receipts or the so-called Texas franchise tax will further hobble Nevada businesses.
Randy got everyone’s attention with some recent economic headlines: gaming revenues down, A&E layoffs, land prices and real estate valuations plummet. The state leads the nation in unemployment; Lyon County’s rate is up at 18.5%. And predictions for job growth will be down for many years. With the $3.2 Billion deficit in mind the state’s budget director Andrew Clinger said you would have to cut everything but education (55% of the budget) to balance the budget.
The Democratic majority typically favors tax increases or new taxes to protect coveted programs and insure public sector jobs. Steven Horsford, the senate majority leader has proposed a 50-50 deal, $1.5 Billion in taxes and $1.5 Billion in cuts. Problem here is the lack of detail and the temporariness of cuts against the permanence of taxes. With over half the legislature being public employees, it is difficult to see how devastating tax increases will not come about. And, it is not as if those public employee salaries and benefits are cheap. Randy showed compensation charts that make NV look like Bell CA!
Simply put, more government, more spending and more taxes will drive businesses from NV and further tank the economy. The only way to guard against this is to elect conservative candidates who will block tax increases and insist on expense reductions and government efficiency.
Randy listed key Assembly and Senate races: Assembly: District and conservative candidate: 5th-Williams, 13th-Hammond, 21st-Sherwood, 22nd-Stewart, 23rd-Woodbury, 27th-Jurado, 29th-Hill, 31st-Thompson, and 40th-Livermore. Senate: 2nd-Gustavson, 5th-Roberson, and 8th-Cegavske.
There has been some sentiment in our membership for a more active role in addressing the issues we discuss. Indeed, our tag line for the Reno Hayek Symposium is: “Articulating conservative solutions to current issues & supporting their intelligent champions.” As Randy ably pointed out, now is the time to support conservative candidates. To that end, we will have special meet and greet candidate interviews between now and the November election. The object is to raise money and where feasible offer “boots on the ground” help to get these folks elected. We will have both email and web notices of upcoming opportunities.
I also want to thank John Dunn for his NV4CFE (Yucca) update, Tom Gurnee for his China business comments, and Jerry O’Driscoll for expanding his recent WSJ article on the balance sheet recession.
Finally Joe Morabito announced a key federal race fund-raiser for Dr. Joe Heck who is running against Dina Titus; this will be held at his home on September 24th. RSVP to Nicole at 702-614-5900 or nsarouphim@gmail.com.
Finally A Stimulus That Has Its Intended Effect
Posted by Tom in Deficit, Democrats, National Debt, Nevada, State Finances, Stimulus/Bailout, Unions on August 11, 2010
What is this latest $26 Billion stimulus, is it number 5 or 6? I’ve lost count. But this one you can bet will work effectively to accomplish its intended purpose…..to buy votes for Comrade Obama and his leftist cronies. It goes directly to the public employee unions, specifically the teachers. That increases union dues which in turn increases political donations. This stimulus rewards spendthrift states–takes from fiscally responsible states like Indiana and gives to bankrupt states like New York and California. Seems we find the most registered Democrats in those fiscally irresponsible states!
Today’s WSJ pens a great editorial on the subject, “Stimulus Pushers.” As the title suggests, Hussein Obama is the dope pusher further addicting these leftists spendthrifts with a high powered dose of bailout. The addicts don’t care about the hidden costs or the consequences; they just want the fix.
A few principled governors like Haley Barbour of Mississippi are pushing back. The federal government is hijacking state budgets. Rick Perry of Texas is in disfavor with the DC crowd so Texas gets penalized in the legislation. What’s astounding in this is the sheer hubris, the sheer abuse of power with the simple justification that the leftists have the power.
Two points are clear: One, this stimulus only postpones the day of reckoning for these bankrupt states. And, two, these parasites if left unchecked will eventually kill the host—the private sector that pays taxes will no longer be able to afford the excessive pay and benefits sucked up by the public sector. Atlas will indeed shrug!
For Nevadans, Reid must go, and the Pelosi’s democratic lackeys must be defeated. By piling up deficits and debt they are stealing from our children and grandchildren, the height of immorality!