Commerce Tax
A new analysis of the Commerce Tax — Nevada’s destructive gross-receipts tax — shows that not all industries are treated equally under the law. Some industries, such as retail trade, bear a much higher burden than other industries, such as mining. For skeptics regarding the unpopular tax, the data reinforces what was commonly understood: That the Commerce Tax ultimately benefits certain industries over others — while enabling politically connected businesses to effectively shift their taxes onto sectors of the economy with less political clout. (Read more)
Government regulation
An Obamacare regulation that mandates calorie counts on menus has had the industry worried since it was first announced. There was some hope that the burdensome mandate — which the industry says is almost impossible to comply with — would be reversed, or at least revised, by the Trump Administration. However, while FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb has issued “clarifying” guidance on the rule, core concerns remain — including potential criminal penalties for small businesses that incorrectly display calorie information. (Read more)
Government waste
Local governments — including those within Nevada — always seem to be promoting the idea of some “new” mass-transit rail project. Las Vegas, for example, has repeatedly discussed the possibility of adding light rail. But why is this idea so popular among local governments throughout the nation? After all, mass-transit has been seeing substantial declines in ridership for years, despite massive amounts of taxpayer dollars being spent to prop up the failing concept. In fact, since 1970, taxpayers have spent well over a trillion dollars in such schemes. As Randal O’Toole explains in the Wall Street Journal, “measured per passenger-mile, the subsidies for transit are more than 40 times as great as for driving.” (Read more)
Free markets
The best thing about a free market system, is the fact that there are no “losers” in a voluntary transaction. This is why, when someone purchases something at a store, both the customer and the business owner say “thank you.” By contrast, government operates entirely on coercion. It’s no wonder, then, that taxpayers never feel like they get as good a deal from government as they do from the voluntary exchanges they make with neighbors and private businesses. (Watch the video)
Environmentalism
Another alarmist group is trying to fear-monger politicians into adopting big-government “solutions” for climate change, a recent letter sent to world leaders reveals. “A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it, is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated,” reads a recent letter written by a group of scientists. Keep in mind, however, that these are largely the same scientists that predicted human population growth would result in an uninhabitable planet by the 1990s. They also predicted that the polar icecaps would be completely melted by 2014, and the city of New York would be consumed by rising ocean levels by 2018. (Read more)
