IPFS Vin Suprynowicz

The Libertarian

Vin Suprynowicz

More About: Vin Suprynowicz's Columns Archive

WHERE TO CUT THE NEVADA STATE BUDGET

Even as the national GOP was suffering defeat after defeat, clinging valiantly to the banner of “smaller government, more freedom” from 1933 through 1979, passing its standard in turn to Robert A. Taft, then to Barry Goldwater, the little state of Nevada remained nearly unique in its historic, Old West laissez faire approach -- low taxes, small government, legalize anything that doesn’t frighten the horses.

Why do you think everyone flocked here? It wasn’t the waters.

And now? Since 1980, Americans have increasingly favored the Republican Party and its historic platform of lower taxes and smaller government. The GOP, finally, has a green light from the electorate to roll back taxation and government meddling in our lives to pre-1964 (if not pre-1933) levels.

And how well has the GOP kept its promises, now that it controls the White House, the federal Congress, the Nevada governor’s mansion, and the Nevada state Senate?

With jaw-dropping abandon, the leaders of today’s Nevada Republican Party are committing forms of intercourse rarely seen this side of Bangkok with the state’s offal-fattened bureaucrats, conspiring with the Democratic minority to boost state spending by more than 55 percent in less time than it takes for a child to finish elementary school, and -- most revolting of all -- claiming they can’t find anywhere to cut the state budget!

In an announcement closely resembling a dare, Nevada Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio has called a special meeting this evening (May 4) to hear from lawmakers and others on specific ways to cut spending in the two-year budget now under review.

Mr. Raggio, R-Reno, said the meeting -- starting at 5:30 p.m. and teleconferenced to Room 4412 of the Sawyer Building in Las Vegas -- is intended to give all comers a chance to offer specifics on where spending in the $5.7 billion budget proposed by Gov. Kenny Guinn can be reduced.

Programming a computer to compare the 2004 Nevada budget with the 1964 Nevada budget and deleting every new office and program created over that 40 years might prove a good start. (Did anyone seriously complain Nevada “didn’t have enough government” in 1963?)

But in the meantime (and please note the pristine simplicity of eliminating entire projects and programs at the root, thus preventing them from growing back like pruned shrubbery the minute you look away), why not:

1) Eliminate the failed pay-an-extra-teacher-to-sit-in-back-grading-papers experiment known as “Class Size Reduction.” Completely.

2) Eliminate every Medicaid “add-on” not absolutely required by the federal government -- and then instruct Attorney General Brian Sandoval to sue Washington under the 10th Amendment to get Nevadans out of this unconstitutional Ponzi scheme (which already costs us $400 million per year, just at the state level), entirely.

3) Eliminate prison sentences for drug possession and other non-violent mala prohibita statutes; release those currently jailed; lay off guards.

4) Yes, it sounds incredible, but stop handing out welfare aid to ineligible recipients.

5) Repeal the “prevailing wage” law, rigged to pay much more than any typical local wage, thus driving up the cost of state construction projects. Kill the minimum wage increase. Sue the federal government under the 10th amendment to overturn application of any federal minimum wage in Nevada.

6) Shut down the Nevada State College at Henderson. Entirely.

7) Close the state dental school. Entirely.

8) Eliminate the Millennium Scholarships; transfer the tobacco money to cover medical costs of those who smoked before the hazards of the habit were known -- which is what our attorney general said we needed the money for when he joined the lawsuit in the first place.

9) Reduce overcrowding at the state universities (eliminating the need for any further expansion) and increase quality and competitiveness by refusing to admit students with standardized test scores so low they are immediately remanded to “remedial education.” Offer UNR for sale to a private endowment to be run without state subsidies. (It’s doubtful anyone would want UNLV.)

10) Encourage home schooling to reduce government education costs by exempting home schooling families from as much as $3,000 in school taxes per year per student (saving taxpayers the other half of what they now spend per student, once bricks-and-mortar are figured in), and divert ninth graders who neither express nor demonstrate any aptitude for college work into apprenticeships in the useful trades, allowing smaller high school student bodies to advance more quickly to more advanced levels at lower cost.

11) Change all DMV worker compensation from hourly to piece work, punishing dawdlers. Extend weekend and evening hours, and allow private entrepreneurs to man any windows left unmanned by the regular staff at any time, keeping half the money they take in. Extend vehicle registrations to four years between renewals, for starters. Make drivers licenses valid for life.

12) Double the pay of legislators per day, but only for the first 60 days; deduct pay for every day they remain in session over 120. Require the repeal of one old law (or spending bill) for each new one enacted. Double the year’s pay of any lawmaker who manages to repeal more old laws than he or she proposes new ones.

13) Raise the insurance “co-pay” for state employees -- to 100 percent, eventually. Raise insurance deductibles, and tell new hires they will receive no benefits after retirement, as Gov. Kenny Guinn has proposed.

14) Instead of applying COLA raises by percentage at all pay scales, make them a flat dollar amount figured at the lowest pay scale. A can of soup doesn’t cost the $150,000 department head any more than it costs the $40,000 janitor.

15) Close the state’s lobbying office in Washington.

16) Cut the PERS benefit accrual from 2.67 percent per year to 2.5 percent per year. For starters.

17) Require all state university professors to teach at least three real classes per semester.

18) And as for all the pending new tax, fee, and assessment increases: Kill every one. Kill appropriation bills SB 497 (spreading tree diseases by putting out wildfires), SB 498 (schoolhouse museum), SB 499 (Easter Seals facility), SB 500 (Future Stars of America), SB 503 (theater restoration), SB 505 (Women Veterans’ Outreach.)

Kill interim studies ACR 20 (assisted living), SCR 17 (pain management study -- we already know the best way to manage pain is to re-legalize the opiates), and SB 506 (arid basins study.)

Do they still not get it? We’ve got enough government. Wrap it up and go home.


thelibertyadvisor.com/declare