(Fred Weinberg) – They are getting desperate over in Carson City.
It clearly appears that Governor Sandoval’s proposed business license tax is dead on arrival in the State Assembly after it passed through the State Senate like feces through a goose.
A watered down version in the Assembly doesn’t seem to have the vote count.
So, they trotted out the PO PO to try and convince the Assembly to pass the largest tax increase in Nevada history “for the children”. (It might have been a little more convincing had the Clark County Sheriff not been pimping for the taxi industry’s jihad against Uber at the very same time.)
Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong made the point that if we fail at education, than we’ll eventually pay the price in incarceration.
That may be a valid point and Furlong may actually be a better educator than the state superintendent—that’s faint praise for both of them—but what he’s leaving out is the example of Baltimore where they spend the third highest per student IN THE NATION and it’s still, well, Baltimore.
“Sheriff, what do you expect of me. I can’t read and I can’t write so I’m going to be in and out of your jails,” he said a recent perp told him.
But tax increases won’t solve that guy’s problem. I sincerely doubt that perp didn’t learn to read or write because we didn’t spend enough on education. (If you’ll just learn to read, we’ll juice you in at the Flamingo…)
Frankly, we have a competence issue. In education, criminal justice and state government. The path of least resistance has always been to raise spending, feel good about it and leave the problem for the legislature which meets about 10 years later when the latest round of spending increases don’t work.
Education has three components. Parents who are involved in their children’s lives, teachers who love to teach and classroom discipline which allows students to learn. More money does not buy more of any of those things.
Should teachers make $100,000 a year?
Absolutely. You can accomplish that by not worrying about class size and worrying about the quality of the teacher. In short, you can get rid of teachers which are just union members taking up space, increase the class size and remove impediments to educating kids who want the education. That means disruptive kids in the classroom.
Not only does more money NOT buy more education, it actually inhibits the process.
The natural reaction of politicos like Governor Brian Sandoval and Senate Majority Leader Mike Roberson once they find a way to pump more money into any department which says it needs it is to go hide under their desks.
Then, what happens is that the money they sent into the system gets pissed away and you are back to square one. The politicos’ terms end, they go on to other pursuits and nothing ever happens beyond that.
If we were to see any real ideas from the teachers’ union or the administrators, we might be more sympathetic. But if you ask them in any public forum how to solve the problems of today’s educational system, the answer is always the same—more money.
It has never worked in the past.
The Governor’s desperation won’t make it work this time.
Mr. Weinberg is publisher of the Penny Press. Get to know more about him by visiting www.PennyPressNV.com.
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