(Fred Weinberg/The Penny Press) – Elsewhere in the pages of this week’s issue, you will see a piece by Tom Mitchell about Congressional candidate Mark Amodei and his absolutely correct viewpoint on how the Harry Reid-Barack Obama-Nancy Pelosi cabal has literally killed job creation in Nevada.
Amodei had a pretty good understanding of the problem, which is that the Federal Government owns the vast bulk of land in this state and that fact stands squarely in the way of creating new jobs.
Allow me to explain in somewhat more crude language than either Mitchell or Amodei could or would.
It is easier in this state to get a license to run a brothel (which is a euphemism for whorehouse) than to open a mine, graze livestock or build a powerplant. And, since Mr. Hope and Change was elected, that applies even more.
Why?
Well, as a matter of state law, prostitution is a matter of county option except for Clark, Washoe, and Carson City, so all you need is a rural county’s approval. And even a Nevada County Commissioner understands the income brothels bring in fees and taxes.
That means if, say, Newmont Mining wants to open up a new open pit mine on I-80 by Wells, given the Federal permits necessary, it can take five years before they can start advertising to fill the first job. More since January 20, 2009.
Wells, however, has two brothels.
Amodei thinks that the Feds should turn the permitting process over to the counties. In other words, let the folks who approve brothels and bars and all the other stuff which needs to be regulated at the local level permit the mines and grazing and the other right of ways as well. Makes sense. If a county commissioner can approve sex for sale and understands the economic impact of a brothel than surely he (or she) can come up with a way to permit a mine in a similar time frame.
That single idea should get Amodei elected to Congress.
Now I need to be clear here.
I’m not endorsing or condemning legalized prostitution, although I find it hilarious that it is not legal in Carson City where the legislature can teach any hooker the tricks of the trade. And I would further observe that the only substantive thing Harry Reid told the state’s Legislature in a speech was they ought to kill off legalized prostitution.
Brothels are a fact of rural Nevada life and are probably only going to go away when our dollar is no longer a valid medium of exchange—something which, if the Federal Government keeps up its monetary policy, may happen sooner rather than later.
I’m certainly not comparing the brothel business to mining and agriculture. It is much less lucrative both in terms of jobs and economic impact.
I am merely pointing out that if you want to open a business wherein women sell sex to men, you can get a permit to do so a whole lot quicker in this state than you can open a mine or a grazing pasture on Federal land.
What kind of public policy is that?
Depending on which set of statistics you believe, we are either in the middle of a big recession or at the beginning of the second dip of a second recession.
Either way, economic growth is the only way out.
Having the government borrow money to give it away to people isn’t a solution you could sell to most fifth graders.
You need to encourage jobs created by economic growth.
Imagine the economic growth we would see in rural Nevada if we actually went out of our way to encourage mineral extraction and agribusiness.
Barack Obama and his environmentalist friends should get down on their knees and thank the good Lord in Heaven for the existence of companies like Newmont Mining who are willing to risk huge amounts of capital to create wealth for their shareholders and jobs for their employees. They ought to ask how they can speed things up.
Instead, they hire people who make it more difficult to get a new mine up and running than it is for somebody to open a business in which women sell sex to men.
I’m sure that Barack and the Federal Employee Corps have plenty of good reasons this is the case.
But, at the end of the day, it’s all nonsense and worse, it’s bad public policy.
At the very least, I hope that when Amodei gets elected to Congress he sponsors a bill which makes it as easy to open a mine as it is to open a brothel in Nevada.
