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Archive for month: August, 2014

You are here: Home » Updates » Political Update – March 9, 2015 » 2014 » August
August 26, 2014
26 Aug 2014

Political Update – August 26, 2014

NPRI: New margin tax study seriously flawed

Chantal Lovell
Nevada Policy Research Institute

LAS VEGAS — Responding to today’s release of a study paid for by margin tax proponents and purporting to show that the tax would have a positive impact on Nevada’s economy, Geoffrey Lawrence, NPRI’s research director, released the following comments:

The analysis funded by the margin tax sponsors through UNLV’s Center for Business and Economic Research suffers from several major shortcomings.

First and foremost is that the economic-impact model employed by the authors fails to account for the negative impact of short-term capital consumption in the medium- to long-term. While not all details are provided, the purported job “gains” from the margin tax appear to result entirely from diverting corporate funds from capital investment toward government spending programs that are more labor-intensive.

Even the most basic economics textbooks, however, teach that capital investment is the primary determinant of growth in labor productivity, and consequently, wages. Private industry investments are the base of the economy.

The authors claim that this diversion of capital investment will result in an immediate boost to state gross domestic product, supposedly because converting these resources into wage income will accelerate cash flows and produce a “stimulus” effect.

Likewise, the benighted may grow fatter in the short term by eating their seed corn. Farmers, however, never prosper by eating their seed corn and neither can advanced economies.

Sustaining and growing Nevada’s capital supply is vital to Nevada’s long-term economic growth and increasing the earnings of private workers. Ph.D. economists should know this.

Additionally, the authors appear to intentionally mislead readers about the impact that higher spending has on public education. While the authors acknowledge the large body of academic research showing no relationship between spending levels and outcomes, they purport to represent an offsetting body of research that finds such a relationship.

The studies they cite, however, don’t actually make this comparison at all. They instead relate class size to achievement levels in the early grades — a body of research that is not in dispute.

Read More Here



Keystone’s Mission:

To recruit, support and advocate for candidates for public office who support private sector job creation, low taxation, a responsible regulatory environment, and effective delivery of essential state services.

Keystone’s Goals:
  • To focus on candidate support on state legislative races and the governor’s office.
  • To oppose any form of corporate income taxes or other business taxes that discourage capital investment and therefore job creation.
  • Support limiting Nevada state government spending to the rate of population growth.

Quote:

“Sustaining and growing Nevada’s capital supply is vital to Nevada’s long-term economic growth and increasing the earnings of private workers.“– Chantal Lovell, NPRI
UNLV disowns its own study on margin tax

Kyle Roerink
Las Vegas Sun

UNLV is wringing its hands over an economic study done by its Center for Business and Economic Research.

The center released the study on Tuesday and reported that the Education Initiative, also known as the margin tax, was a way to earn the state up to $862 million for Nevada’s K-12 education system while creating more than 13,000 jobs in 2016.

The center’s report “does not represent the position or views of the university,” UNLV acting President Donald D. Snyder said in a media release on Thursday.

Read More Here

Co Chairs Darren and Cheryl Wilson Invite
You to the
Keystone Annual Dinner

Honoree
Lorraine Hunt-Bono
Former Nevada Lieutenant Governor

with

Dennis Miller

October 14, 2014

Well known for his conservative political opinions Dennis is a regular political commentator on Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor. He is a stand up comedian and political commentator as well as a TV & radio personality.

The Venetian
Casino • Hotel • Resort
3355 S. Las Vegas Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV 89109

Download The Table and Sponsorship Information Here
Email to: Info@KeystoneNevada.com
Phone to: 702-952-2456

If you’re having trouble viewing this email, you may see it online.
in Political Update /by webmaster/#permalink
August 15, 2014
15 Aug 2014

Political Update – August 12, 2014

Commentary: ‘Education Initiative’ is really disastrous Margins Tax

Ron Knecht
Elko Daily Free Press

A July 25 letter in the Reno Gazette-Journal from a retired Washoe County School District employee shows that the teachers’ union campaign for the margins tax on the November ballot will reach new lows of dishonesty and deception.

The deception starts with the title of ballot question 3, “The Education Initiative,” with 84 confusing sections, but only one on education. The letter by Stephen Norman of Sparks says it “was developed to provide appropriate funding for a quality education for all Nevada children.” The measure does not assure that a single new penny goes to K-12, but they gave it the “Education” title to con voters into believing it will better education.

If the proponents of the tax had any wholesome intent and intellectual competence, they would say just how much the measure will raise our taxes ($700 million a year) and how much of that will be spent on education. Instead, they hide behind bland and misleading phrases like “appropriate funding.”

Norman says, “Nevada’s education budget has been cut by $700 million since 2009!” He gives no source for this claim, but by its very terms it’s intentionally misleading. The reason is that it references budgets, which include wish lists of school districts and other tax-eaters. An explanation of the ways in which such budget figures are artificially inflated to mislead and be useless is so long that it must wait for another day.

The key facts about actual spending are these: Over the last 20 years, state general fund K-12 spending in real terms (net of inflation) per student has risen about 40 percent — faster than spending on any other major budget category. However, the per-person real incomes of Nevada families and businesses paying the taxes to support those schools rose only about 10 percent. That is, despite all the rhetoric about shorting our schools and kids, the spending has risen hugely and become an ever larger burden — by 30 percent — for beleaguered taxpayers.

In fact, total state spending in that time, driven by rapid increases in K-12 and Health and Human Services, has risen about 20 percent faster than the incomes of Nevadans. Worse, in the Great Recession and Obama’s non-recovery of the last five years, per-person real incomes of Nevadans have fallen by 10 percent while state K-12 real per-student spending has increased by that amount. The only actual spending cuts occurred after the Legislature’s blow-out when it foolishly hiked 2009 real per-student spending 19 percent.

Norman falsely claims, “Our schools spend just over $7,000 per student, whereas the national average is well over $11,000. As a result, Nevada ranks at or near the bottom on nearly measures of education quality.” In fact, for school year 2011-12 (the latest one for which complete state-by-state figures are available), Nevada revenues spent on K-12 were $9,457 per student, and that figure is now near or above $10,000. The teachers’ union likes to quote lower “current spending” figures, as if the dollars we pay to build new schools don’t really count and aren’t a burden on our families and businesses.

 

Read More Here



Keystone’s Mission:

To recruit, support and advocate for candidates for public office who support private sector job creation, low taxation, a responsible regulatory environment, and effective delivery of essential state services.

Keystone’s Goals:
  • To focus on candidate support on state legislative races and the governor’s office.
  • To oppose any form of corporate income taxes or other business taxes that discourage capital investment and therefore job creation.
  • Support limiting Nevada state government spending to the rate of population growth.

Quote:

“If the proponents of the tax had any wholesome intent and intellectual competence, they would say just how much the measure will raise our taxes ($700 million a year) and how much of that will be spent on education. Instead, they hide behind bland and misleading phrases like ‘appropriate funding.’“– Ron Knecht, Elko Daily Free Press
Margins tax considered a failure in Texas
Jim Clark
RGJ

Student Annie Healion, in her letter to editor [Voices, Aug. 2], complains of “missing covers of outdated textbooks … and countless other marks of lack of funding in Nevada schools.” She implores readers to support the Education Initiative because “the 2% corporate tax is minute compared to most other states’ margin taxes of 6, 7 and 8 percent.”

She apparently hasn’t been reading those texts because no other state except Texas has a margins tax, and its is two to four times lower than that proposed for Nevada in the special-interest ballot proposition she champions.

Read More Here

Co Chairs Darren and Cheryl Miller Invite
You to the
Keystone Annual Dinner

Honoree
Lorraine Hunt-Bono
Former Nevada Lieutenant Governor

with

Dennis Miller

October 14, 2014

Well known for his conservative political opinions Dennis is a regular political commentator on Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor. He is a stand up comedian and political commentator as well as a TV & radio personality.

The Venetian
Casino • Hotel • Resort
3355 S. Las Vegas Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV 89109

Download The Table and Sponsorship Information Here
Email to: Info@KeystoneNevada.com
Phone to: 702-952-2456

If you’re having trouble viewing this email, you may see it online.

 

 

in Political Update /by webmaster/#permalink
August 5, 2014
05 Aug 2014

Political Update – August 5, 2014

Locals discuss proposed margin tax

Dylan Woolf Harris
Elko Daily Free Press

A proposed tax will cost Nevadan jobs and won’t necessarily help the schools its designed to fund, said opponents of the margin tax on Thursday.

The Elko Area Chamber of Commerce’s Government Affairs Committee organized a public forum to discuss the margin tax — also called “The Education Initiative” and “Question 3” — which would place a 2 percent tax on the gross revenue of  businesses that generate more than $1 million in annual revenue.

Voters will decide at the ballot in November whether the tax is implemented. Until then, sides arguing for and against the bill are trying to rally supporters.

The chamber invited Manny Martinez and Jerry O’Driscoll, directors of Reno-based NV Jobs PAC — a political action committee formed for the purpose of defeating the margin tax — to share their thoughts with forum attendees, an audience of about 20 people.

O’Driscoll said profit margins for many businesses, even those grossing more than $1 million, aren’t substantial. A trucking company with a fleet of five semis, he said for example, that collects $2 million might only profit $100,000 after factoring in gas, maintenance costs, employee salaries and benefits and other miscellaneous expenses.

Apply the margin tax to the calculation, and that profit drops to $72,000.

“A seemingly small tax on the gross revenue of the business translates into a very high tax on its profits,” O’Driscoll said.

In the trucking company scenario, O’Driscoll imagined the profit is split between two owners who now bring home less money than they pay their truck drivers, and they’re forced to lay off a receptionist.

The $1 million threshold of gross sales, NV Jobs PAC representatives said, is a mark many businesses hit.

If passed, money generated from the tax will go into Nevada’s distributive school account, which is dispersed to school districts.

Read More Here



Keystone’s Mission:

To recruit, support and advocate for candidates for public office who support private sector job creation, low taxation, a responsible regulatory environment, and effective delivery of essential state services.

Keystone’s Goals:
  • To focus on candidate support on state legislative races and the governor’s office.
  • To oppose any form of corporate income taxes or other business taxes that discourage capital investment and therefore job creation.
  • Support limiting Nevada state government spending to the rate of population growth.

Quote:
“A seemingly small tax on the gross revenue of the business translates into a very high tax on its profits,“– Jerry O’Driscoll, NV Jobs PAC
Margin Tax Would Cause Destruction of 3,600+ Private-Sector Jobs
GEOFFREY LAWRENCE
Nevada Policy Research Institute
New Dynamic, General-Equilibrium Analysis Simulates Impact of Tax Proposal

Although much has been said about the proposed margin tax on businesses that will appear as Question 3 on November’s ballot, there is a shocking lack of clarity about the actual impact of the tax on Nevada’s economy.

Read More Here

Co Chairs Darren and Cheryl Miller Invite
You to the
Keystone Annual Dinner

Honoree
Lorraine Hunt-Bono
Former Nevada Lieutenant Governor 

with

Dennis Miller

October 14, 2014

Well known for his conservative political opinions Dennis is a regular political commentator on Fox News Channel’s The O’Reilly Factor. He is a stand up comedian and political commentator as well as a TV & radio personality.

The Venetian
Casino • Hotel • Resort
3355 S. Las Vegas Blvd.
Las Vegas, NV 89109

Download The Table and Sponsorship Information Here
Email to: Info@KeystoneNevada.com
Phone to: 702-952-2456

If you’re having trouble viewing this email, you may see it online.

 

 
in Political Update /by webmaster/#permalink

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Keystone’s Mission:

To recruit, support and advocate for candidates for public office who support private sector job creation, low taxation, a responsible regulatory environment, and effective delivery of essential state services.

Keystone’s Goals:

To focus on candidate support in state legislative races and the governor’s office.

To oppose any form of corporate income taxes or other business taxes that discourage capital investment and therefore job creation.

Support limiting Nevada state government spending to the rate of population growth.

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