Ralstonian Math Dissed

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ALEC – the American Legislative Exchange Council – has released a new study that completely discounts the Ralstonian math oft cited by socialists who want more government and less private sector.

Here’s the complete study, and here are some important highlights:

  • Bigger government damages a state’s economy.
  • Nevada’s tax structure is generally good for the economy because it offloads a good chunk of the cost of running government onto tourists and companies who cater to tourists (who merely pass their tax burden onto their tourist customers).
  • Nevada ranks medium to high on lists that compare tax burdens on residents – again, because Nevada offloads its cost of government onto visitors.

Ralstonian math doesn’t consider government spending a valid measure of government (!). Instead, it only measures how much taxes residents pay. By that measure, Nevada fares poorly.

And that’s the continual harping you’ll hear from those who use Ralstonian math – mostly government unions, socialists and people who curry favor with elected officials in order to trade political influence for a living.

(Full disclosure: ALEC named the webmaster one of a handful of its “State Legislators Of The Year” a couple of years ago).

Inevitable Consequence Of Planning To Increase Spending While Revenue Is Falling

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The National Conference of State Legislatures has issued a reminder to Nevada’s Legislature: if you plan to increase spending during a time when revenue is falling, especially when all other states are trimming spending in line with revenue, you will end up with the largest budget gap amongst American States.

No doubt the Confused Wing of Nevada’s political and press corps will again complain that we need to raise taxes in Nevada, rather than do what all the other states are doing (which is reducing spending in line with revenue).

New Report Has California Left Advocating Even Higher Taxes

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So-called “progressives” are fond of rebuking critics of their fascist ideas by suggesting they are all wealthy people or their advocates, complaining that they don’t want to pay more taxes. And of course, the mainstream media generally trots right along, since it is dominated by “progressives.”

Conservatives, on the other hand, understand that you cannot tax wealthy people, business owners, or businesses. Their positions of success gives them the ability to shift the cost of higher taxes onto others – either their employees (by not granting as large a pay raise, or moderating benefits, when it’s time to counter inflationary creep) or their customers (by raising prices) or their renters (by raising rents) or… well, anyone but themselves.

At the end of the day, the cost of tax hikes are borne by people who can least afford it.

Conservatives understand that.

So it’s a surprise only to California’s “progressives” that low and middle income people are leaving California faster than high income people (although all categories are leaving almost as fast as new rubes move in from foreign countries, folks who apparently are making their migration decision on the basis of a thirty-year-old marketing brochure). Here’s a sample of the news coverage – from the newspaper in California’s far-gone state capital…

The states without personal income taxes, such as Texas, Nevada and Florida, are the most likely destinations for high-income families and individuals leaving California. However, those states are also among the most frequent destinations of low-income families as well.

Strangely, California’s “progressives” are reacting to the news as if they are vindicated – it’s okay to raise taxes on the wealthy in order to help the lower and middle class after all, they say.

Ironically, the Las Vegas Review Journal ran a letter to the editor on the same day that this news broke from a woman who noted that her and her family’s favorite fast food breakfast went up in price by one third the same day the Nevada Legislature’s latest record tax hikes AND the minimum wage hike went up.

Sometimes Media Bias Shines Like The Sun…

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Mazzeo poses in front of her attorneys collection of sexual sadism

Mazzeo poses in front of her attorney's collection of... WHAT?

Law enforcement has thoroughly investigated and dismissed the claims by part-time cocktail waitress Chrissy Mazzeo (warning: the link goes to boudoir photos of Mazzeo that she is publishing on the internet to further boost her career) that Governor Gibbons hit on her, thus causing her concern for her welfare.

So why is the Las Vegas Sun reporting the story again today, complete with a six month old photo misleadingly presented as current?

The best part was the photo they ran, which covered about a quarter page.

You can see the photo to the right.

The best part of this photo is what it says about Ms. Mazzeo’s attorney. Kudos to my wife, who pointed out the wall behind the pair. Does her attorney specialize in torture?

As you can see, the photo has been removed from the Sun’s website version of today’s story.

UNR Budget Cut Prompts Reno Newspaper’s Wild Exaggeration

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The Reno Gazette Journal’s headline shouts: “UNR Eliminates 279 Jobs” but of course they are lying. If you read deep within Lenita Powers’ article, you’ll find the truth:

  • UNR paid 37 people extra to retire who wanted to retire anyway (1% of the workforce)
  • UNR didn’t extend the contracts of 37 employees (1.2% of the workforce) for whom there was no obligation to extend the contracts
  • The other 211 “employees”, were either not actually employees (just new people UNR hoped it might be able to hire) or are employees that will remain as employees but will be “paid out of a different account” (6.7% of the workforce)

Prior to these “drastic” cuts, UNR counted 3,145 positions (not all actually filled) according to this spreadsheet:

http://www.unr.edu/vpaf/pba/budget/historical/09state&selfFTE.xls

Faux Draught Foes Drowned Out

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A cynic might say the head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority has engineered a big rise in the water levels of reservoirs upstream from Lake Mead in order to preserve the appearance of extended draught for short-sighted Las Vegans. Her motive would be to create public support for her environmentally- and taxpayer-destructive plan to drain water basins hundreds of miles north of Las Vegas, which would allow her to spend billions of construction dollars and collect political patronage like iron filings to a magnet.

Here’s the story from KLAS channel 8. You decide.