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Why not work on solving real problems?

It’s become a cliché to claim a proposed idea is a solution in search of a problem. And yet, there are several prime and dangerous examples of the phenomena in the Nevada Legislature this year, leaving one to wonder why legislators aren’t more seriously by focused on the very real and pressing Sheila Leslie dilemmas confronting our state. Case in point: The voter I.D. bills. During hearings on the legislation, proponents were repeatedly asked to provide data surrounding the widespread voter fraud problem driving their request to require all citizens to show a government-sponsored identification card before voting. No one could produce the data because it doesn’t exist. While one case of a voter intentionally voting twice was caught and prosecuted under former Secretary of State Ross Miller, that’s about it. Several people mentioned the ACORN case, one that Miller also pursued successfully, but that centered on voter registration irregularities, an issue with no bearing on polling place voter I.D.

Despite these facts, former assemblymember Sharron Angle testified that “we do have a voter impersonation problem across the country.” When pressed by Assemblyman Elliot Anderson for examples of this occurring in Nevada, she could not provide any, but said there is “anomalous activity that goes on in Nevada elections that is not easily explained.”

Assemblywoman Michele Fiore, R-Las Vegas, attacked the notion of opponents that the proposals would disenfranchise minorities, the poor, and the elderly who may not have original documents needed to get a government I.D. Instead, Fiore claimed opponents were using “the race card” and condescendingly told witnesses, in case they “hadn’t noticed,” that the president is black.

The I.D. proposals come with a high price tag and were unceremoniously sent to the Assembly budget committee, where hopefully this “solution” dies amid the proven need for these dollars elsewhere.

As the 2014 elections revealed, the real challenge in Nevada elections is motivating citizens to vote at all. A number of bills propose to address this real problem, including bills to preregister 17-year-olds, same-day registration, permanent polling places open to all, and extending the registration period. But it’s hard to see those bills passing in a GOP-controlled Legislature. Young, poor and minority voters tend to lean Democratic.

Another solution with no identified problem are the twin bills to enact the Nevada Protection of Religious Freedom Act. These bills are similar to SB 192 from the 2013 Legislature where no evidence was ever presented of any “state action that burdened a person’s exercise of religion,” the reported impetus for the legislation. Nevertheless, the bill was approved on a 14-7 vote by the state Senate with unanimous Republican support as well as four Democrats.

Sponsors of the 2015 legislation seemed oblivious to the disaster in Arizona when a similar “legalized discrimination” bill was approved, quickly leading to businesses refusing services to gays under the guise of “religious freedom” and a subsequent boycott that threatened to undermine Arizona’s economy. The backlash led to the embarrassment of state senators renouncing their own votes and joining the Chamber of Commerce in begging Republican Gov. Jan Brewer to veto the bill, which she did.

It took the self-destructive actions of Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Pence upon signing a similar bill last month, and the threats of corporations operating in Indiana, including the National Collegiate Athletic Association, to convince Nevada legislators to drop their bills. One said he reviewed the Nevada constitution with legal counsel and found religious protections already provided therein.

Instead of solving the non-existing problem of government-sponsored religious discrimination, these bills would have placed Nevada’s tourist economy at the same risk of a nationwide boycott.

The casino industry was never going to allow that to happen. When it comes to fleecing gamblers, Nevada doesn’t discriminate. Ω

Here’s a great website that talks about the principal author of many of these bills: www.alecexposed.org/ wiki/ALEC_Exposed

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Republicans excuse tax hikes

Republican Assemblyman Pat Hickey said recently that promises Republican candidates made last fall to not raise taxes—well, that was just campaign rhetoric. After they got to Carson City and realized how desperately Nevada state governby ment needed a tax increase, they Brendan just had to face reality. Trainor The last time I heard that excuse was in 1992, when a young former governor of Arkansas, William Jefferson Clinton, ran as a New Democrat and promised not to raise taxes. He won the election, beating President George H. W. Bush who himself famously broke his promise, “Read my lips, no new taxes” and a feisty Texas billionaire, Ross Perot, who lectured the nation on the national debt, then a shocking $4 trillion, a quarter of its current size. No sooner was President Clinton inaugurated when he announced that by golly, he was shocked, shocked to discover the true state of finances in Washington, D.C., and would, sadly and reluctantly, have to propose new tax increases.

So, I will believe Assemblyman Hickey’s excuse for the Republican push for the largest tax increase since the last one when I am convinced that Hillary Clinton is the champion of the middle class.

The problem with tax increases is that they result in more government power and prop up government inefficiencies. There is no need for that. The government reforms passed this session like ending some prevailing wage mandates and for the first time allowing private school choice are welcome. Taking back the public lands would enable more local revenue for education. The Legislature should concentrate on government reforms this session, not on the logrolling and special interest pleading involved in a tax increase.

Gratingly annoying is the proposed increase of the cigarette tax. Nevada has low cigarette taxes compared to other states, and since gamblers smoke more than the public at large, we have avoided some of the onerous regulations on individuals and property rights enforced in other states. Cigarette smokers are overwhelmingly lower middle class and poor and the least able to pay more tax.

What risks peaceful people take and what they put into their own bodies should be of no concern of the state. The establishment of both parties point to “social cost” whenever they want to tax or outlaw the choices people make about their own lives. This is a fabrication that, John Stuart Mill pointed out in his 1853 treatise On Liberty, will lead to all manner of statist interventions

Any human behavior outside of the prescribed norms are supposed to create costs that “everyone must pay for.” There are many problems with this argument, not the least of which is that prohibitions and increased taxes lead to black markets and then the violence caused by state enforcement, which results in far more “social cost” than the original infraction.

The extreme case in Staten Island, New York, of a black man, Eric Garner, who was “harassed” to death by police for selling loosies, or loose cigarettes, to those too poor to buy packs under the outrageous New York cigarette tax regime, should bring the point home. The dangers of arbitrary state interference into the laws of supply and demand are seldom discussed in polite circles. Government action is presumed to accomplish what it intends to do, and any suggestion that there will be major unintended consequences caused by an increase in government police powers, even if made, seldom carries the day in our current legislative environment.

Freedom is the only antidote to this madness. Ω

Remember the time Pat Hickey told the truth, and people beat him up for it? http://bit.ly/1E6jQjQ. Did anyone ever congratulate him on being right?