SILVER STATE CONFIDENTIAL 02/02/2015

AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR CONTROLLER… On the eve of Opening Day of the 2015 Nevada Legislature, State Controller Ron Knecht, an economist by trade, released the first of what he announced would be a monthly report from his office.  Gov. Brian “America’s Worst Governor” Sandoval (R&R-Advertising) cannot be happy.  Some highlights from the report… “Nevada does not have a problem of insufficient revenues.  The problem is a failure to reasonably manage state spending…” “Nevada’s spending problem is part of a 60-year national trend of government being bigger than the levels that maximize economic growth and thus human well-being, and yet still continuing to grow relative to the economy and the incomes of families and businesses.” “We would have much higher incomes and more jobs today if we had reasonably restrained the growth of government.” “We should ignore misleading budget-cut claims by the special interests that benefit from public spending, and focus instead on the actual year-to-year spending levels.” “(T)he great K-12 spending growth of a few years ago has not yielded any improvement in student achievement.  So, the Governor’s proposals to repeat those mistakes with big new increments of K-12 spending should be rejected.” “The Governor’s proposed margins tax is one of the worst ideas, and it should be rejected.” In a separate email to columnist Tom Mitchell, Knecht added, “I also think the sunset taxes should ... sunset.” Amen! You can read the full report by clicking here AX THE TAX NOW President Barack Obama has proposed a new, huge tax hike that will allow him to spend around 7% more than the spending limits in place at the federal level.  Meanwhile, Gov. Brian “America’s Worst Governor” Sandoval (R&R-Advertising) has proposed a new, huge tax hike that will allow him to spend around 10.6% more than the spending limit in place here in Nevada. So who’s the bigger tax-and-spend liberal? BTW, if the governor has his way, instead of businesses getting their state business license fee reduced from $200 a year to $100 a year with the expiration of the sunsets, some will be hit with a new business license fee in excess of, get this, $2 MILLION!! And yet some Republican legislators just can’t bring themselves to publicly tell the governor “No!” Of course, if Sandoval had a “D” after his name instead of an “R,” those same Republicans would be screaming bloody murder. EXPLODING THE “MORE MONEY FOR EDUCATION” MYTH Perhaps the biggest fallacy in the arguments in favor of Sandoval’s billion dollar tax hike is that we need more money for education.  Sandoval claims it, and all too many institutional business groups have fallen into the “amen” corner.  Here, let me prove why this claim is total BS… Taxpayers presently provide somewhere in the neighborhood of $7,000 per student, not including all the additional money for building construction, maintenance, etc.  And thanks to grants and additional federal assistance for our worst-performing schools, that amount probably exceeds well over $10,000 per student in many schools. Now let’s say there are 25 kids in a classroom.  That means a minimum of $175,000 per year is already provided to teach those 25 kids.  And in some classrooms, well over a quarter million. Now, most teachers are seriously underpaid.  I don’t know the exact starting salary, but let’s say it’s $36,000 per year.  That means you could bump the pay of the teacher to $75,000 a year and STILL have another $100,000+ to spend in the classroom to teach Johnny to read, write and do arithmetic. The problem isn’t that we’re underfunding education.  The problem is that we’re overfunding the education bureaucracy. Or funding items that have no direct bearing on, um, education. For example, Sandoval has proposed spending an additional $2 million of taxpayer money for “free” school breakfasts.  Would somebody please explain to me when and how it became my responsibility to pay for some other kids’ breakfasts? Indeed, if the kids’ parents’ income is so low as to qualify for a free breakfast, then the kids’ parents’ income is already low enough for the parents to quality for food stamps and other government assistance.  So why can’t these people feed their own kids breakfast in the morning? Inquiring minds wanna know. And one more question… Why are taxpayers paying for or subsidizing the college education of grown adults?  If you want more money for K-12, cut the university budget and shift the money over. DRIVE-BY MUTHINGS Just a few hours after my Silver State Confidential newsletter went out Sunday morning, I received a phone call from a Metro detective investigating Chris “Let’s Make a Deal” Edwards’ claim that he was being extorted.  It was a very open and productive call which was recorded with my full permission. I’m not at liberty to disclose all the details of the conversation at this time, but let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if Edwards ends up on the hot seat for filing a false complaint. *   *   *   *   * Assemblyman Paul Anderson’s wife and kids were on their way to Carson City on Saturday evening when an SUV cut in front of them and caused a serious collision in which both vehicles reportedly flipped over.  Mrs. Anderson was flown to Renown Hospital in Reno but thankfully is OK, as are all the kids. And just to give you an idea of the kind of mentality conservatives are dealing with among some of the unhinged on the left, some yahoo anonymously going by the Twitter handle “@gormandad” twit-tweeted: “Was it @ChuckMuth driving the SUV?" What a sick puppy. *   *   *   *   * I found this story quite uplifting, though the person who told it to me asked to remain anonymous… When asked how she should be addressed by staff, new Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske reportedly asked why.  The staff person said that the previous office holder, Ross Miller, insisted on being called “Mr. Secretary of State Miller” at all times.  Cegavske then replied, “Barb is just fine”  *   *   *   *   * One of my liberal friends tells me he ran into Sen. Moderate Mike Roberson (RINO-Clark) on the outside deck at some restaurant or watering hole  and took a picture of him.  Roberson reportedly threw a fit and went inside.  So our amateur paparazzi followed him inside and Roberson proceeded to be even more of a “dick” to him.  Resulting in even more pictures.  Why can’t Roberson be more like Barbara Cegavske?  And how long will it be this session before he loses his temper and has a public meltdown?  Some people just can’t take the heat. JOIN ME FOR CARSON CITY HAPPY HOUR TONIGHT! If you’re in the ‘hood Monday afternoon and care to toss back a couple cold ones with fellow “political terrorists,” meet me at Red’s Old 395 Grill from around 4:00 pm until…whenever.  Cheers! FAMOUS LAST WORDS “(Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval) called for the largest tax increase in Nevada history.  And he did so after nearly 80% of voters in November rejected a tax hike that, while differing in size and scope, was touted as addressing the same problem Sandoval hopes to remedy with his plan: the state's woeful public education system.” – Mark Barabak, Los Angeles Times, 2/2/15 “The problems with Sandoval’s tax-and-spend proposal also include what he’s spending the money on. Pouring more money into Nevada’s broken education system, especially into programs like full-day kindergarten and pre-K that are proven to be ineffective, would only continue the waste and won’t produce lasting student-achievement gains.” – Victor Joecks of the Nevada Policy Research Institute HOW TO SUBSCRIBE Silver State Confidential is an email newsletter on Nevada politics, public policy and current events published (usually) daily by Chuck Muth, Nevada's #1 Renegade Conservative and the man voted "Most Likely to Irritate Liberals!"  Click on the link below for subscription information…