While Democrats in Congress were having palpitations and forecasting climate catastrophe as a result of the Trump administration’s streamlining of rules governing the review of federally funded infrastructure projects under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1970, Nevada’s lone Republican representative in Congress took the time to review the rules and finds the … [Read more...]
Clark County Teachers Union Pushing Huge Tax Hike
The Clark County teachers union this past week launched two tax hiking ballot initiatives that would raise Nevada taxes by $1.4 billion — devastating the state’s economy and doing nothing to actually improve the quality of education. One proposal would increase the Local School Support Tax — a part of the statewide sales tax — from 2.6 percent to 4.1 percent, a 58 percent … [Read more...]
New Nevada Laws Driving Up Cost of Doing Business
Thanks to the Democrat-controlled 2019 legislative session it is going to be more expensive to do business in Nevada this year and in years to come. The most expensive dictate from lawmakers takes effect July 1, when the first phase of Assembly Bill 456 kicks in raising the minimum wage in Nevada by 75 cents an hour. Currently the minimum wage for those with health … [Read more...]
NEPA Rule Changes will Benefit Economy and Environment
President Donald Trump announced this past week that his Council on Environmental Quality is streamlining the rules for major infrastructure projects — such as roads, bridges, pipelines and power transmission lines — required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1970, aiming to cut the approval time for such projects in half. The council published the changes … [Read more...]
Homeland Security Concerned about Illegals Driving Legally
The acting head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ordered all the agencies under his purview to review the ramifications of state laws that allow illegal aliens to obtain driver authorization cards and restrict sharing data with immigration enforcement authorities. Nevada is one of those 14 states. Lawmakers passed Senate Bill 303 in 2013 and it was … [Read more...]
Trump is Reshaping the Federal Judiciary — For the Better
Thanks, Harry, because you exercised the “nuclear option” in 2013, ending the requirement that judges had to be confirmed by at least 60 senators instead of a simple majority, President Donald Trump has secured the appointments of about twice as many federal judges as each of his three predecessors — and most of them have been conservatives sworn to protect the fundamental … [Read more...]
State Should Not Play Favorites with Tax Breaks
Nevada’s Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) has doled out billions of dollars worth of tax breaks to select companies over the past decade in order to entice them to make capital investments and create jobs, yet the state is one of 17 that has failed to create a systematic program for evaluating the effectiveness of those handouts, according to a recent article in … [Read more...]
Congress Continues its Spending Spree
Just days before Christmas, Congress played Santa Claus, doling out billions in pork to those who have been nice to them and sending the bill to our grandchildren. Talk about taxation without representation. The two spending bills totaling $1.4 trillion and covering more than 2,300 pages were debated for just 90 minutes in the Senate but passed with huge bipartisan support … [Read more...]