{"id":34860,"date":"2016-10-06T11:05:02","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T18:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/?p=34860"},"modified":"2016-10-06T11:05:04","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T18:05:04","slug":"gov-sandoval-to-esa-parents-children-pound-sand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/gov-sandoval-to-esa-parents-children-pound-sand\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. Sandoval to ESA Parents & Children: Pound Sand!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"a\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(Chuck Muth)<\/strong><\/em> –\u00a0Investor\u2019s Business Daily<\/em> dubbed Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval<\/strong> as \u201cAmerica\u2019s Worst Governor\u201d for his $1.4 billion tax hike last year \u2013 the largest in state history \u2013 which included a new business income tax that 80% of Nevada voters had rejected at the polls just six short months earlier.<\/p>\n

This week the highly-respected Cato Institute gave Sandoval an \u201cF\u201d on its report card for his fiscal irresponsibility \u2013 the same grade that California uber-liberal Gov. Jerry \u201cMoonbeam\u201d Brown<\/strong> received.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, Sandoval has now called for a special session of the Legislature to approve a funding program for the construction of a much-needed new multi-purpose domed stadium in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Funding for the stadium could<\/em> come from the EXISTING<\/span> revenue generated by the tourist room tax on Las Vegas hotels and resorts \u2013 which is exactly the kind of project that tax was created for in the first place.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Sandoval\u2019s plan is to RAISE<\/span> the room tax in order to also fund an expansion of the Las Vegas convention center – which competes with private Las Vegas convention facilities at subsidized, below-market rates.<\/p>\n

And if that\u2019s not bad enough, get this\u2026<\/p>\n

The only really good thing the Republican-majority Legislature did last year was approve the creation of a new voucher-like school choice program called Education Savings Accounts (ESA).<\/p>\n

Liberals and the teachers union then sued to block the program, arguing the ESAs violated the separation of church and state doctrine.<\/p>\n

The Nevada Supreme Court recently rejected that argument.\u00a0 But in an absurd ruling that could only come from government, the Court declared that the EDUCATION<\/span> Savings Accounts couldn\u2019t be funded from \u2013 are you ready for this? \u2013 the EDUCATION<\/span> budget!<\/p>\n

Ridiculous.\u00a0 Asinine.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, Sen. Scott Hammond<\/strong>, author of the program, said that technicality could easily be fixed.\u00a0 After all, we\u2019re only talking about finding roughly $17 million to fund the program for the remainder of this budget cycle from a total budget of around $10 BILLION<\/span> dollars.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s like winning $10,000 on a slot machine and needing to find $17 to buy a \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d baseball cap.<\/p>\n

State Treasurer Dan Schwartz<\/strong> could find that $17 million in the government\u2019s sofa cushions.\u00a0 State Controller Ron Knecht<\/strong> could find it in his sleep.\u00a0 Conservatives in the Legislature could find it in a New York minute.<\/p>\n

So all Sandoval needed to do was add this item to the special session agenda and some 8,000 Nevada families who have already signed up for the ESA program could immediately get the school choice assistance they\u2019ve been promised and the Court has found constitutional.<\/p>\n

But Sandoval has shamefully decided NOT to include fixing the ESA funding problem during the special session.\u00a0 Which means the program could be killed completely next session if Democrats regain majority control of the Legislature in November.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s Worst Governor, indeed.<\/p>\n

(Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Chuck Muth) –\u00a0Investor\u2019s Business Daily dubbed Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval as \u201cAmerica\u2019s Worst Governor\u201d for his $1.4 billion tax hike last year \u2013 the largest in state history \u2013 which included a new business income tax that 80% of Nevada voters had rejected at the polls just six short months earlier. This week the highly-respected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34861,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[748],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34860"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34860"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34863,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34860\/revisions\/34863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}