How State and Local Government Spends Your Money
This site would not be possible without:
The Tax Foundation finds that Nevada now ranks 25th in state and local government spending per person. Fully half the states accomplish their goals of state and local government with less money per person.
This website was created to help Nevadans learn how government is spending all of this money. Browse by topic (above and right) or chronologically (below).
The Nevada Policy Research Insititue has long labored to document how our state and local government works.
Citizens Against Government Waste was founded by Washington journalist Jack Anderson and industrialist Peter Grace.
Their collaboration in the Silver State is now available online.
As of the end of October 2008, Nevada’s state prison population was running about 8% below the projected inmate population. Around 13,400 people are doing time in our state prisons.
Here is the Department of Correction’s statistics webpage for October 2008.
The Las Vegas Review Journal reports a 4% decrease in water consumption for southern Nevada so far this year – and a possible decrease in our official population as well.
Local opinion columnist Geoff Schumacher wrote in today’s Review Journal that Nevadans should pay more taxes:
Lawmakers shouldn’t be scared to death of raising taxes. Nevada’s tax burden is the nation’s second lowest, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. This sound sgreat on the surface but it crassly ignores the significant social costs. Idealogues aside, most Nevadans understand that maintaining the many facets of a decent state requires adequate funding.
Indeed, the Tax Foundation is nonpartisan, and did find Nevadans’ tax burden is the nation’s second lowest. But it also found that our tax extraction from non-residents is amongst the nation’s highest, and, most importantly, that our state and local government spending (including what Nevadans and non-Nevadans are required to pay) ranks 25th amongst all states. Indeed, our state and local funding is already adequate.
The Nevada Employment Security Department today published the October 2008 “Economy in Brief” and it is available online. Amongst this issue’s most fascinating statistics: Nevada’s personal income growth rate has been cut in half since the record 2003 tax hikes and 2005 increase in minimum wage.
Compared to a year ago, September sales tax collections were off more than five percent, a continuing indicator that Nevadans are either fewer than they were one year ago and/or have stopped spending as much money per person.
Coverage from the Las Vegas Review Journal.
Nevada News Bureau