Editorial: Minimum wage hike will increase prices and crime

Despite all the evidence that it will do more harm than good, a bill to raise the minimum wage in Nevada is still wending its way through the halls of the Legislature in Carson City.

Assembly Bill 456 would raise the minimum wage 75 cents per hour each year as it climbs from the current $7.25 per hour for those receiving company health insurance and $8.25 for those not insured until it reaches $11 or $12 per hour.

In his State of the State speech, Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak called for raising the minimum wage and declared, “It’s impossible for an individual, let alone a family, to live on $7.25 an hour,” ignoring the fact almost no one “lives” on minimum wage. Fewer than 3 percent of workers are paid the minimum wage and most of them are under age 25 and working part-time. Most are supplementing family income rather than being self-supporting.

In fact, raising the minimum wage often results in jobs being cut and/or working hours reduced. One study found the average low-wage worker in Seattle lost $125 a month because the minimum wage was raised to $15 an hour.

Now, a recent study released by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that raising the minimum wage can harm even those who are not being paid the minimum wage.

Using national crime data from 1998 to 2016, the study found “robust evidence that minimum wage hikes increase property crime arrests among teenagers and young adults ages 16- to-24, a population for whom minimum wages are likely to bind.”

The study projects that raising the minimum wage to $12 an hour nationally would result in approximately 231,000 additional property crimes, costing the nation $1.3 billion. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would generate over 410,000 additional property crimes and $2.4 billion per year in additional crime costs.

“We conclude that increasing the minimum wage will at best be ineffective at deterring crime and at worst will have unintended consequences that increase property crime among young adults,” the study authors concluded. They said that previous studies that projected a decrease in crime due to raising the minimum wage ignored the possibility of hours being cut and jobs being lost.

Don’t ignore the costs imposed on everyone when the minimum wage is hiked. A Cato Institute analysis in 2012 found that a “comprehensive review of more than 20 minimum wage studies looking at price effects found that a 10 percent increase in the U.S. minimum wage raises food prices by up to 4 percent and overall prices by up to 0.4 percent.”

The Congressional Budget Office in 2014 estimated that if the federal minimum wage were increased to $10.10 an hour — as proposed by President Obama and others — up to a million workers would lose their jobs.

According to the American Enterprise Institute, when the minimum wage rose 41 percent between 2007 and 2009, the jobless rate for 16- to 19-year-olds increased by 10 percentage points, from about 16 percent in 2007 to more than 26 percent in 2009 — even higher for minorities.

Without those entry level jobs younger Americans cannot build the skills needed to earn higher pay for a lifetime.

Still another Heritage study reported that every dollar increase in minimum wage really only raises take-home pay by 20 cents once welfare benefits are reduced and taxes are increased.

It’s the immutable law of unintended consequences. Lawmakers should abandon their support for this bill, which would cause more harm than good.

A version of this editorial appeared this week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

Forced speech is not free speech

On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case — NIFLA v. Becerra — that could answer the question of whether forcing speech on professionals is a violation of the free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.

NIFLA is the National Institute of Family and Life Adcovocates, which gives legal advice to pro-life pregnancy centers, and Becerra is Xavier Becerra, the attorney general of California.

At issue is a California law, called the Reproductive FACT Act, that requires “crisis pregnancy centers” to post notices encouraging women to contact the state to receive information on free or low-cost abortions — forced speech.

According to a synopsis of the case posted the high court website: “The Act also burdens pro-life religious unlicensed centers’ speech by requiring them to place extensive disclaimers in large fonts and in as many as 13 languages in their ads, which significantly burdens their ability to advertise. But the Act exempts most other licensed medical and unlicensed non-medical facilities, such as abortion providers, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities, as well as federal health care providers. The Ninth Circuit candidly admits that it upheld the Act amidst a ‘circuit split’ with decisions by the Second and Fourth Circuits over how to scrutinize regulations of speech by medical professionals on controversial health issues. The ruling also conflicts with a recent decision by the Eleventh Circuit.”

The question before the court is: “Whether the Free Speech Clause or the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment prohibits California from compelling licensed pro-life centers to post information on how to obtain a state-funded abortion and from compelling unlicensed pro-life centers to disseminate a disclaimer to clients on site and in any print and digital advertising.”

In an amicus brief filed on behalf of the Cato Institute Ilya Shapiro argues that the law clearly is a free speech violation due to requiring certain content.

Shapiro writes, “The Act’s requirements are both facially content-based — because they compel speech — and discriminate based on view- point. Both aspects require strict scrutiny, which the disclosure requirements cannot survive because (1) ex- emptions to the disclosure requirements illustrate that they are underinclusive, and (2) any number of other methods for distributing the same information would not impose significant burdens on speech.”

Whatever one’s stance on the issue of abortion is irrelevant. This is clearly a free speech issue because it dictates the content of one’s speech, no matter the beliefs, knowledge and conscience of the speaker.

Shapiro reminds the court that it previously has rejected mandated recitation of selective facts, explaining, that “either form of compulsion burdens protected speech. Thus, we would not immunize a law requiring a speaker favoring a particular government project to state at the outset of every address the average cost overruns in similar projects, or a law requiring a speaker favoring an incumbent candidate to state during every solicitation that candidate’s recent travel budget.”

Shapiro then goes on to cite an example of the “truthful” speech that could be compelled if the California law is upheld:

Could a state have required physicians to tell any pregnant patient without health insurance who was contemplating an abortion that she should vote for Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential race if she was concerned about getting access to low-cost health insurance for herself and her unborn child through a state health-insurance exchange? This statement is truthful, non-misleading, and relevant to the patient’s medical decision.

If the state wishes to to convey its message about abortion availability it has numerous ways to do so without forcing certain people to be the conduit for it.

 

 

Happy Bill of Rights Day

Several years ago I penned this for the Review-Journal to mark Bill of Rights Day, which falls on Dec. 15:

On this day in 1791 the Bill of Rights were ratified by three-fourths of the states. At the insistence of the Anti-Federalists led by Thomas Jefferson the first 10 amendments were added to the new Constitution.

They might more properly be called a Bill of Prohibitions, since they are not so much a delineation of rights as a list of things the federal government may not take away from individuals and the states and local governments.

Bill of Rights

This is our day to celebrate the First Amendment prohibition against establishing a state religion, despite odd rulings about nativity scenes and posting the Ten Commandments, and the right of free speech and press, despite McCain-Feingold limits on campaign spending and advertising. (Since somewhat overturned by Citizens United.)

This is our day to celebrate the Second Amendment, despite requirements to register handguns and other laws.

We celebrate the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unlawful search and seizure, despite the Hiibel case in which Larry Hiibel was arrested for not giving his name to a Humbolt County deputy. (Not to mention civil asset forfeitures.)

There’s the Fifth’s protection against taking of property except for public purposes that was bounced by the Kelo decision that let government take property for private development. (Ask the folks who own a church retreat in a wildlife refuge whose property has been devastated by flooding due to a federal land agency diverting a stream.)

As for the Sixth’s right to speedy and public trial? Forget it. No explanation needed.

The right to trial by jury according to the Seventh? Try that in traffic court, buddy.

No cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth’s prohibition. Lifetime sentences for possession of pot belie that one.

The Ninth’s and 10th’s guarantees that rights not delineated are prohibited to feds? Let’s see the states try to set the drinking age or voting age or speed limits.

There’s still the Third’s prohibition against housing troops in private homes. (Right?)

Happy birthday, Bill of Rights, long may you be respected.

A couple of years ago I ran across the Cato video below. As my ol’ Pappy used to say: Great minds travel in the same plane, while fools just think alike.

Actually, the Third is also suspect as I reported here. The courts have since ruled that cops are not soldiers. They sure look alike and are armed alike.

How did Nevada’s governor rank in Cato fiscal policy report card?

The Cato Institute today handed out report cards to the governors of all 50 states. Five earned an A. Only 10 warranted an F on their fiscal policies.

Brian Sandoval

Guess what grade Nevada’s Brian Sandoval earned?

The grading is based on seven variables, including two spending variables, one revenue variable, and four tax-rate variables.

Ding. Ding. Ding. Right you are, sports fans.

Sandoval got an F.

This is the Republican governor who came into office promising no new taxes and then pushed the highest tax hike in history. This is the governor who has handed tax breaks to Apple, Tesla and Faraday Future. This is the governor who is calling the Legislature into session on Monday to hike Las Vegas room taxes by 1.5 percentage points to build a stadium and expand a convention center, but refuses to consider funding education savings accounts, even though Democrats might win a majority in either the Senate or Assembly in November and thus doom the program for years to come.

Here is what the report has to say about Nevada’s Republican governor:

Brian Sandoval came into office promising no tax increases. But Governor Sandoval made a U-turn in 2015 and signed into law the largest package of tax increases in Nevada’s history at more than $600 million per year. The package included a $1 per pack cigarette tax increase, extension of a prior sales tax hike, an increase in business license fees, a new excise tax on transportation companies, and an increase in the rate of Nevada’s existing business tax, the Modified Business Tax (MBT).

However, the worst part of the package was the imposition of a whole new business tax in Nevada, the Commerce Tax. This tax is imposed on the gross receipts of all Nevada businesses that have revenues of more than $4 million a year. The new tax has numerous deductions and 27 different rates based on the industry, and it interacts with the MBT.

The Commerce Tax is complex, distortionary, and hidden from the general public. As a gross receipts tax, it will hit economic output across industries unevenly, and it will likely spur more lobbying as industries complain that their tax burdens are higher than other industries. Imposing the tax was a major policy blunder.

The Commerce Tax was imposed to increase funding for education. But Sandoval and the legislature had been directly rebuked by the public in 2014 for their effort to impose a new tax for education. In a November 2014 ballot, Nevada voters overwhelming rejected by a 79–21 margin the adoption of a new franchise tax to fund education.

Meanwhile, in recent years Sandoval and the legislature have been handing out narrow tax breaks to electric car companies, data centers, and other favored businesses. In 2014, for example, Sandoval approved a deal to provide $1.25 billion in special tax breaks and subsidies over 20 years to car firm Tesla. So Nevada’s tax policy entails large increases for all businesses, but narrow breaks for the lucky few.

This November, Nevada voters will weigh in on a ballot question, Question 2, to legalize recreational marijuana and impose the state sales tax and a 15 percent excise tax on the product. Governor Sandoval opposes legalization.

Sandoval actually ranked fourth worse in the nation.

 

 

Editorial: Nevada slipping in its embrace of personal and economic freedom

Nevada ranking 12th in the nation in terms of economic and personal freedom, according to the Cato Institute, is not too shabby — until you notice that we’ve fallen from No. 5 in 2000.

Having legalized gambling and county-option legalized prostitution probably helps in the personal freedom category, but we’ve been marked down for continually raising taxes and having too many business regulations and license requirements.

But what is really frightening is that Cato’s Freedom in the 50 States only analyzed economic data through 2014, which fails to take into account that the 2015 Legislature passed, and the governor signed, a record-setting $1.5 billion increase in taxes. Who knows how far Nevada will fall once that data is taken into account?

Cato analysts scored all 50 states on more than 200 standards including fiscal policies, as well as personal and regulatory freedom.

Cato points out that Nevada state-level taxes have risen from a low of 4.9 percent of personal income in 2009 to about 5.9 percent in 2014. Local taxes have also risen. Also government debt is well above average and rising — from 22 percent of income in 2000, state and local debt in 2014 stood at more than 26 percent of income. That is probably partly due to the $40 billion in unfunded liability for the public employee pension fund.

The analysts mistakenly credited the state Supreme Court for some of the rise in taxation. “Nevada’s fiscal policy has worsened over time, a fact that might have something to do with a 2003 Nevada Supreme Court decision setting aside part of the state constitution, which required a supermajority for tax increases,” the Cato piece reports, neglecting to notice that the court repudiated that Guinn v. Legislature decision three years later. So we’ll just have to blame the lawmakers and executive branch.

We lost freedom points in the area of education, Cato notes, “Nevada was one of the worst states for educational freedom. Private schools are tightly regulated, facing mandatory state approval, mandatory teacher licensing, and detailed private school curriculum control. However, our index does not take account of the educational savings account plan passed in 2015, which in 2014 would have raised its educational freedom score to average.”

Cato did not note that the education savings accounts have yet to be implemented due to litigation questioning the law’s constitutionality.

Nevadans should be concerned about how we will rank in future analyses of our embrace of fundamental freedoms, because freedom requires equal applications of the laws and taxation. The Nevada Constitution dictates a “uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation.”

But the state has been handing out tax breaks and tax credits and outright grants to companies that curry favor with public officials, leaving the rest of the taxpayers to foot the bill for public services needed by those favored few. Hardly conducive to freedom or equality.

Tesla Motors was given $1.3 billion in tax breaks and credits for its new battery manufacturing plant near Sparks that opened recently with much fanfare and at a much smaller size than promised. One critic called it a Potemkin Village.

Then there were millions in similar credits for Chinese-financed Faraday Future, which says it will build an electric car manufacturing plant, though it does not even have a prototype.

And where’s the fairness in a $1.2 million grant to solar panel installer SolarCity, which has since shutdown most operations in the state?

Nevada was once known as a live and let live state. We need to return to those values — letting people make choices for themselves and keep their own money, rather than send it to Carson City to dole out to others.

A version of this editorial appeared this week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

http://www.freedominthe50states.org/?utm_source=Cato+Institute+Emails&utm_campaign=e5db0f6450-Cato-E-Update&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_395878584c-e5db0f6450-141898598&mc_cid=e5db0f6450&mc_eid=afbca91773

Nevada slipping in its embrace of freedom

Nevada ranking 12th in the nation in terms of economic and personal freedom, according to the Cato Institute, is not too shabby, until you notice that we’ve fallen from No. 5 in 2000.

Having legalized gambling and county-option legalized prostitution probably helps in the personal freedom category, but we’ve been marked down for continually raising taxes.

Cato did falsely credit the state Supreme Court for some of this. “Nevada’s fiscal policy has worsened over time, a fact that might have something to do with a 2003 Nevada Supreme Court decision setting aside part of the state constitution, which required a supermajority for tax increases,” the Cato piece reports, neglecting to notice that the court repudiated that Guinn v. Legislature decision three years later.

Despite that oversight in blame laying, Cato notes that state-level taxes have risen from a low of 4.9 percent of personal income in 2009 to about 5.9 percent today. Local taxes have also risen. Also government debt is well above average and rising. That is probably due to the unfunded liability for the public employee pension fund.

We lose points in the area of education, Cato notes, “Nevada was one of the worst states for educational freedom. Private schools are tightly regulated, facing mandatory state approval, mandatory teacher licensing, and detailed private school curriculum control. However, our index does not take account of the educational savings account plan passed in 2015, which in 2014 would have raised its educational freedom score to average.”

Cato also attributes Nevada’s higher than average police spending on our socio-economic model instead of the strong local unions.

http://www.freedominthe50states.org/?utm_source=Cato+Institute+Emails&utm_campaign=e5db0f6450-Cato-E-Update&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_395878584c-e5db0f6450-141898598&mc_cid=e5db0f6450&mc_eid=afbca91773

Editorial: Why Nevadans should vote to legalize marijuana

Recently supporters of Question 2 on the November ballot, which would legalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana, released a study of the economic impact on the state should the initiative gain voter approval.

The analysis by RCG Economics of Las Vegas estimates the legal pot industry could add $464 million in tax revenue for the state over the next seven years, as well as create 3,300 direct jobs by 2024. Each direct job usually spins off three indirect jobs. The report also said roughly half of the recreational marijuana sales would likely be to tourists, possibly increasing that sector of the state’s economy.

But that is not why we support passage of Question 2, but rather because it is a matter of basic liberty.

The Lockean or libertarian principles upon which this nation was founded hold that individuals are free moral agents who have a right to be secure in their life, liberty, and property and to use those rights however they so choose so long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. Such rights are not granted by government but are inherent — or unalienable.

Excessive use of marijuana may well be harmful to its users, just the same as alcohol, tobacco and over eating. This does not represent a reason for government to ban it outright and imprison those who use it or engage in buying and selling it.

David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute and author of “Libertarianism: A Primer,” explains the concept thusly: “Libertarianism is not libertinism or hedonism. It is not a claim that ‘people can do anything they want to, and nobody else can say anything.’ Rather, libertarianism proposes a society of liberty under law, in which individuals are free to pursue their own lives so long as they respect the equal rights of others. The rule of law means that individuals are governed by generally applicable and spontaneously developed legal rules, not by arbitrary commands; and that those rules should protect the freedom of individuals to pursue happiness in their own ways, not aim at any particular result or outcome.”

Question 2 would impose a 15 percent excise tax on marijuana wholesale transactions and the normal sales tax on retail sales. This money would be allocated for education. The Nevada Department of Taxation would issue licenses to those in the marijuana business. Pot sales locations would be subject to local zoning laws and, like alcohol sales, would generally be prohibited near schools, childcare facilities or churches.

Opponents of the measure argue legalization will make it easier for the drug to fall into the hands of minors, but we suspect regulated retailers will make it more difficult, because scofflaw street vendors have no scruples about to whom they sell.

Actually, studies have found that teen marijuana use has fallen in recent years, even at a time when four states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana and 23 others, like Nevada, allow it for medicinal purposes.

We do not advocate marijuana use any more than we advocate prostitution, which is legal in many rural Nevada counties, but rather come down on the side of decriminalization for consenting adults in a properly regulated setting.

It is insane that the fate of those who deign to use marijuana at some point in their lives is dictated by the near-random chance that some are arrested for its possession and spend the rest of their lives with a criminal conviction hanging over them, while others go on to become president.

Individuals should be allowed the freedom to live their lives as they so choose.

A version of this editorial appears this past week in some of the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel,  Sparks Tribune and the Lincoln County Record.

Elko Daily Free Press

Newspaper column: Minimum wage hike proposal would have opposite effect of its intention

Be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it — good and hard.

A group of altruistic, benevolent and well-meaning Nevadans calling themselves the Committee to Raise the Minimum Wage in Nevada has filed a petition with the Nevada Secretary of State’s office that — if it garners enough signatures to be placed on the 2016 ballot and then enough votes at the polls — would nearly double the minimum wage over the next decade.

The petition, filed this past week, would amend the Nevada Constitution to increase the minimum wage to $9.25 an hour upon passage and by 75 cents a year until it reaches $13 an hour, after which it would increase to match any federal minimum wage hike or equal to an increase in the cost of living. The current constitutional minimum wage is $7.25 an hour if health insurance is provided and $8.25 if not.

Fast-food workers rally for minimum wage in Las Vegas (R-J photo)

The petition also states that tips and gratuities shall not be credited as a way to offset the minimum wage and removes the $1 credit for providing health insurance. It also removes the exemption for those under 18 employed part-time by non-profits, but it does allow a lower wage if it is part of a “bona fide collective bargaining agreement” — the usual sop to the unions.

A measure to raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour never made it out of the 2015 Legislature.

The committee must gather 55,000 signatures from across the state to qualify for placement on the ballot.

One of the leaders of the petition drive, Neal Anderson, a Unitarian minister from Northern Nevada, told The Associated Press, “All labor has dignity and therefore we need to value that work. At some point we need to change policy as well, not just provide charity, which is never enough.”

The problem is that study after study has found that raising the minimum wage does not lift more people out of poverty, but rather its net effect is to actually increase the portion of families that are poor and near-poor, according to an analysis of those studies by the Heritage Foundation. This is because a few will see higher income, others will have their work hours reduced and some will drop from minimum wage to zero wage due to layoffs and businesses closing their doors.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that if the federal minimum wage were increased to $10.10 an hour — as proposed by President Obama and others — up to a million workers would lose their jobs.

According to the American Enterprise Institute, when the minimum wage rose 41 percent between 2007 and 2009, the jobless rate for 16- to 19-year-olds increased by 10 percentage points, from about 16 percent in 2007 to more than 26 percent in 2009 — even higher for minorities.

These are entry level jobs without which younger Americans cannot build the skills needed to earn higher pay.

Another Heritage study reported that every dollar increase in minimum wage really only raises take-home pay by 20 cents once welfare benefits are reduced and taxes are increased.

Then there are the affects on everyone. A Cato Institute analysis reports that a “comprehensive review of more than 20 minimum wage studies looking at price effects found that a 10 percent increase in the U.S. minimum wage raises food prices by up to 4 percent and overall prices by up to 0.4 percent.”

Victor Joecks, executive vice president of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, has warned that this proposal is not only anti-business, but anti-worker as well.

“Ultimately, it is the workers who get paid the least that will suffer the most from hikes in the minimum wage — with many of them losing their jobs as businesses close or turn to automation to replace entry-level jobs,” Joecks writes on the NPRI website. “The primary value of entry-level jobs is that they allow workers to gain basic employment skills, which in turn allows them to earn higher wages in the future. Raising the minimum wage, however, makes it harder for low skill workers to get those first jobs. Having that first job is crucial, because two-thirds of minimum wage workers earn a raise within a year.”

He points out that Nevada teenage unemployment already is 23.6 percent.

If this petition is successful it could put countless Nevadans on the dole for life.

A version of this column appears this week in the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel, the Lincoln County Record and the Sparks Tribune — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

Newspaper column: Nevada property rights case knocking on the door of the Supreme Court

A Nevada church is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold its constitutional rights in the face of bureaucratic intransigence and contradictory laws.

In petitioning the court for a hearing this past month, the Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation (CJCL), the legal arm of the libertarian-leaning Nevada Policy Research Institute, said current law essentially forces the church to choose between its First Amendment right to freely exercise its religion and its Fifth Amendment right to due process and compensation for the “taking” by government of its private property.

It started in December 2009 when Victor Fuentes and his wife Annette, whose church owns a 40-acre tract of land surrounded by the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, learned that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service planned to reroute a stream that had run through their property since at least 1881.

Victor and Annette Fuentes next to stream when it ran through their church camp. (Photo for Pahrump Valley Times by Mark Waite)

The property is a retreat for the Ministero Roca Solida (Solid Rock) church and the stream was one of the major attractions for visitors to what they called Patch of Heaven. It was also used for baptisms. On Christmas Eve 2010, heavy rains caused the stream to overflow its new man-made banks and flood the church property with water and mud, causing nearly $90,000 in damages to buildings and other property.

Following statutory procedures, CJCL filed a claim with Fish and Wildlife for damages. The agency never even acknowledged receipt of the claim, and CJCL filed suit.

Fuentes — a Cuban refugee who swam seven miles of open ocean in the dark from near his home in Santiago, Cuba, to Guantanamo Bay to gain political asylum — has been disturbed by the lack of justice he has received in his adopted country.

“I came to this country because I didn’t want the government’s hands on me,” said Fuentes in an interview when the litigation began. “I fled that government. That’s not the government I wanted to find here.”

Since the petition was filed with the high court, two amicus briefs have been filed in support of Roca Solida — one by the Nevada attorney general and another by the conservative Cato Institute and the National Association of Reversionary Property Owners.

“This is the powerful federal government squeezing an important but vulnerable religious ministry started by an immigrant who fled an abusive government in Cuba,” said Attorney General Adam Laxalt in a statement when his office filed the amicus. “I remain committed to protecting our state and its inhabitants from the detrimental effects of federal overreach and abuse of power.”

There is an urgency to the case, because a six-year statute of limitations is about to expire, even though the case has been languishing in various courts for most of those six years.

The petition and the amicus briefs argue conflicting law cannot erase fundamental constitutional rights.

CJCL Director and Chief Legal Officer Joseph Becker explained, “At issue is whether Congress may confine Pastor Fuentes and his churchgoers, the victims of multiple constitutional rights violations, to seek redress in but one federal court even though no single federal court has jurisdiction to remedy each of the constitutional violations suffered.”

Congress may not abrogate by statute a right constitutionally guaranteed.

“The hallmark of an unconstitutional condition is legislation that offers relief for a violation of a constitutional right, but only through the abdication of another right …” the attorney general’s amicus brief notes. “As the Court has done for decades when parties face a Hobson’s choice in adjudicating constitutional claims, the Court should grant review and clarify that the procedural statutes in this case should be interpreted to avoid this constitutional quagmire.”

The Cato and the property owners amicus quoted a passage from on opinion by Justice William Brennan: “As soon as private property has been taken, whether through formal condemnation proceedings, occupancy, physical invasion, or regulation, the landowner has already suffered a constitutional violation, and the self-executing character of the constitutional provision with respect to compensation is triggered. This Court has consistently recognized that the just compensation requirement in the Fifth Amendment is not precatory: once there is a ‘taking’ compensation must be awarded.”

The case, though complicated and even convoluted, is hardly academic to Nevadans who are downstream from numerous federal land agencies that control 85 percent of the state and presume the power to divert streams and close roads that lead to private property.

A version of this column appears this week in the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel, the Lincoln County Record and the Sparks Tribune — and the Elko Daily Free Press.

Newspaper column: Former Gov. Miller touts his failed education spending to promote Sandoval’s plan

This past week Gov. Brian Sandoval presented his proposed business license tax based on gross receipts in the form of Senate Bill 252 to a joint meeting of the state Senate and Assembly taxation committees. He insisted his proposal is not like the margin tax soundly defeated by the voters in November.

“The business license fee (BLF) as proposed is broad based because it will apply to all Nevada businesses,” Sandoval said. “The BLF is fair … It also differentiates between business types. Businesses have different costs of labor and goods and the BLF recognizes that. Construction is not the same as a retailer and a retailer is not the same as a resort hotel.”

Former Gov. Bob Miller testifies for raising taxes to support public education.

The margin tax pushed by The Nevada State Education Association would have imposed a 2 percent tax on the gross receipts of all Nevada businesses that gross more than $1 million a year, regardless of profitability.

Sandoval’s plan doubles the business license fee on all businesses from $200 to $400 and also imposes a tax on gross receipts. SB252 is a 130-page behemoth with 27 separate tax tables for different industries. For some industries the tax kicks in at about $125,000 a year and for others it doesn’t apply until nearly $200,000 a year. The tax rates vary from a low of 0.056 percent for mining to a high of 0.362 percent for rail transportation.

The margin tax was estimated to hit private industry with $800 million a year in taxes, while Sandoval has said his tax will rake in $250 million. The lowest tax would be $400 and the highest would be $4 million.

For all its flaws, the margin tax was uniform. Sandoval’s is a contortion. Those 27 different tax tables arguably defy the state constitutional mandate that: “The Legislature shall provide by law for a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation …”

To help sell his tax hike, Sandoval dragged before the tax panels former Gov. Bob Miller as a living, breathing illustration of just how ineffective his plan to spend more money on education will be.

Miller pushed for and the 1989 Legislature approved a class-size reduction in grades first through third.

“I along with many people in this room have been fighting to modernize our education system through both reforms and the creation of a stable broad-based funding source, and this session is the best opportunity we will likely ever have to reach this goal,” Miller testified. “In the 1990s our focus, mine and the Legislature, was on class-size reduction and early childhood programs … but here we are today, and as most of you know, the statistics are depressing about our state’s education system.”

He went on to cite the facts that students are reading below grade level and 30 percent aren’t graduating from high school.

Since 1990 the state has spent close to $2.5 billion on Miller’s class-size reduction — which like Sandoval’s plans for all-day kindergarten, early childhood education and various special million-dollar programs seemed a no-brainer at the time — but the results have been nil. In fact, in some cases the results have run counter to what was expected.

A 2001 report by the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau found that, while principals, teachers, and parents were very positive in their attitudes toward class-size reduction, achievement data did not produce results. Students in larger classes outperformed those in the smaller classes.

Twenty-five years and billions of dollars later Miller is back and saying the system is broken and we need to spend billions of dollars more on special programs, largely the same as he did years ago. Why should we believe him again?

Two ideas Sandoval has put forward, but without much specificity, might improve things: stop promoting third graders who cannot read and provide incentive pay to teachers whose students show improvement on assessment tests. Neither requires tax hikes.

The Nevada Registered Agent Association commissioned a study of SB252 that estimated its enactment would cut new business filings in Nevada by approximately 44 percent in fiscal year 2016 and 63 percent in FY 2017. The study also estimated that the proposal overstates its revenue projections by approximately $42 million in FY 2016 and by about $65 million for FY 2017. NRAA Study

How long will it be before the the business license tax is increased? Better yet, how long will it be before we see improvements in education?

According to the Cato Institute, Nevada has increased inflation adjusted per pupil spending more than 80 percent since 1972, but SAT scores have fallen.

Meanwhile, no one is suggesting any budget cuts.

Cato Institute study of Nevada education spending and the results.

A version of this column appears this week in the Battle Born Media newspapers — The Ely Times, the Mesquite Local News, the Mineral County Independent-News, the Eureka Sentinel, the Lincoln County Record and the Sparks Tribune — and the Elko Daily Free Press.