Conservative Politics

Our Founders and the classical liberal intellectuals they followed got the basics of government right and thus launched two centuries of freedom and opportunity leading to hope, unprecedented economic growth and astounding human flourishing and wellbeing.

However, a century later a counter movement arose and has continued to gain until now, undermining freedom and opportunity and diminishing hope, growth, wellbeing and flourishing.

Ten years from now, you probably won't remember Christopher Suprun.

Suprun was chosen by the Texas Republican Party for the Electoral College. For most of our nation's history, this has been a procedural and honorary duty conferred upon loyal activists within the political parties when their presidential candidate carried their state.

We are humanists and, so, optimists.

Against us in the political sphere stand environmentalists and other anti-humanists. These folks see not progress, but threat, in seemingly everything done by man.

We see man as being born into an uncertain and challenging world. In a state of nature, earthquakes, tornadoes and other disasters combine with infections and shortages of food, shelter and other basic resources to threaten man's very survival. But over centuries, humans have applied their intelligence to shape the world around them.

Disagreement is part of human nature, especially in any society that values people as unique individuals.

Geoff was reminded of that recently when he and his sainted wife Jenna watched a reenactment of the Jefferson-Adams debates. Bill Barker and Steven Holloway, two scholars from the Colonial Williamsburg living history museum, played Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, respectively.

Last week we discussed the state ballot measure that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana in Nevada. We have mixed views on that issue, but there are three other important state ballot questions we oppose.

Question 1 would require background checks for almost all gun sales or transfers. That might sound harmless enough or maybe even beneficial to some folks. But it’s quite the opposite.

Nevadans will vote in coming days on legalizing the recreational use of marijuana here, as four other states have already done.

Both advocates and opponents have made strident cases to support their views. However, the two camps cite data that appears to conflict. We have mixed views on this initiative, but we are interested in informational clarity.

Every two years, the Cato Institute in Washington, DC ranks the recent changes in state fiscal policies to give readers an understanding of the trends prevailing in each state. Last week, Cato released its newest Fiscal Report Card, and Nevada fares poorly.

Of the 50 states plus Washington, DC, Nevada ranks 47th due to its unfavorable shifts in tax rates and spending in the last legislative session.
Study author Chris Edwards notes that large unfunded liabilities for public-employee pensions and ballooning Medicaid costs are putting upward pressure on state budgets.

As our readers know, we’re huge sports fans. So the idea of going to a professional sporting event in our home state of Nevada is very exciting.
And that excitement is resonating across Nevada as the Oakland Raiders are considering relocating to Las Vegas.

However, that excitement alone isn’t enough to justify higher taxes in order to provide public funding for constructing a new stadium. Professional sports are, after all, a business and should be financed on their own.

First thing in Monday night’s Presidential debate, moderator Lester Holt told a whopper that illustrates the left-wing bias of lamestream media pundits and how they concoct completely false narratives to serve that bias and promote statist-liberal Democrats.

In both sports and life, we love great champions.

But athletic dominance alone isn't what makes a champion great. Character is what elevates some to the greatness. Humility, integrity, sportsmanship and respect for others are what set some champions apart.

That’s why we think more highly of Greg Maddux than Roger Clemens. Maddux was all class all the time, while Clemens was full of ego, aggression and controversy.

As Barack Obama’s second Presidential term winds down, what can one say about his signature domestic initiative, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare or ACA)?

Passed in 2010 by a Democrat Congress without a single Republican vote, it promised to improve health care, cut costs and assure everyone is protected by insurance. Also, numerous times, unequivocally on the public record, Obama assured us: If you like your health insurance, you can keep it; if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.

None of those goals and assurances was realized. All failed.

All workers have the constitutional freedom of association and may form labor unions if they so choose. Under the same constitutional right, employees should be free not to join the union. And employers, public or private, should have the right to bargain with a union or not.

This week we note a recent death and two retirements. As Mr. Lincoln said: It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. As we mourn the passing of a man, we are reminded of the joy and goodness he brought us, and we also comfort his survivors. And in honoring the two retirees, we celebrate the values they exemplified and the inspiration and joy they provided.

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Rick Fineberg recently lost a long battle to esophageal cancer. He was admired and will be sorely missed by many.

Unprofitable companies often eventually go out of business. Tesla Motors is very unprofitable.

The electric-car maker scored a big win in 2014 when Gov. Brian Sandoval and Nevada lawmakers passed a $1.3 billion subsidy package to entice Tesla to build in Storey County a huge battery manufacturing facility that’s a key part of its business. The package also forgave sales taxes for 20 years, property and payroll taxes for ten years, and provided discounted electricity rates.

Nevada was once a nationwide model of fiscal rectitude. Not now.

During the Great Depression, state leaders even launched a promotional campaign called "One Sound State" boasting of this fact. It advertised a state with "no income tax, no inheritance tax, no sales tax, no tax on intangibles, but with a balanced budget and a surplus."

In our last column, we explained that the financial collapse of 2007-08 was due much to collusion between private banks and government. Congressional mandates required lenders to issue mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them. Then, government agencies would purchase the faulty loans from the banks, thus relieving the banks of the risks.

Sometimes Hollywood hits a homerun.

For example, The Big Short, the movie account of the US financial collapse of 2007-09. Its all-star cast is notable. But we were skeptical from the sound bites used in previews and other promotional blather that this would be another anti-capitalist propaganda flick. We were wrong.

Nearly everyone, it seems, has been focused lately on Donald Trump’s nomination by the Republicans and now the chaos of the Democrat convention. We want to celebrate some other important aspects of the GOP convention (where Ron was a delegate) as reflected in speeches by Paul Ryan, Scott Walker and Mike Pence.

“We learn from history that we learn nothing from history,” said Friedrich Hegel.

Last week in Reno former Soviet economic advisor Yuri Maltsev began a speech with that quote. We appreciated his remarks, although his message is an ominous one.

Yuri related some of his experiences growing up in Soviet Russia as a warning for people who think socialism is great. In his view, Americans are often far too cavalier about praising certain aspects of socialism and similar collectivism while failing to recognize socialism for what it truly is: state slavery.

We were again reminded this week that ignorance can breed misunderstanding and occasionally violence.

We were deeply saddened by the senseless murder of five police officers in Dallas. The young shooter, an African-American, claimed outrage over several earlier shootings of black men by police officers elsewhere. He had no known connections to these men, nor to the police officers he shot.

His motive was based on a logical fallacy to which too many people fall prey.

Nevada Republican voters spoke loudly last night. Again.

They spoke loudly in November 2014, voting down a proposed gross receipts tax (GRT) 4-to-1 and sweeping Republicans into control of Nevada’s executive and legislative branches for the first time in generations.

That was a mandate to hold the line on taxes, reform collective bargaining, stop the bleeding in the Public Employees Retirement System, improve schools through choice and other reforms, and especially to oppose the kind of tax 79 percent of voters rejected.

Others saw things differently.

In our last column, we explained that the defeat of efforts to repeal the commerce tax shows that Nevada’s political establishment – controlled by Big Gaming and Big Unions – owns not only many officeholders of both political parties, but much of state and local government.

We said that Nevada’s supreme court justices, as loyal members of the establishment, manufactured a bogus excuse to upset the referendum effort. Today we explain why the court’s decision was political.

The defeat of efforts to repeal the commerce tax shows that Nevada’s political establishment – controlled by Big Gaming and Big Unions – owns not only many officeholders of both political parties but nearly all of state and local government.

Many large corporations and industries in recent decades have decided to join – not fight – the destructive liberalism and predatory agendas of the bi-partisan establishment and the selfish union and other special interests that jointly dominate US politics.

Gov. Brian Sandoval and his allies don’t think voters should have a say on the commerce tax they snuck through in the closing hours of last year’s legislature.
They're entitled to their views. However, they’ve been wildly misrepresenting key facts about the matter and about the actions and words of Ron, who is leading the effort to repeal the tax. Below, we set them and the record straight.

When we’ve had enough of politics and politicians, we need a good fun exhilarating movie like The Right Stuff. After a long hard week, take Saturday evening to watch this rollicking 1983 classic with great casting, script, directing, settings, performances, action, music, editing and themes. Plus hot planes and some explosions.

There are many great aspects of the film, but we want to note one we find profoundly appealing. Something the world needs these days.

Recently Ron spoke to an industry group about the petition to give voters the final say this fall on the onerous Commerce Tax passed by the Legislature and Governor last year.

A lawyer for referendum opponents also spoke, and we were appalled at their attitude toward Nevada voters and the grossly false arguments they make against a referendum.

Recently, we analyzed the records of the last seven presidential administrations on economic growth and income inequality. The Reagan, Clinton and Nixon/Ford administrations did best, with Bush43, Bush41 and especially Obama the worst.

But income inequality is trumped by income mobility – the ability of people to improve their lot and of one generation to do better than its parents’ generation.

Monday, April 4, 2016, the greatest sportscaster ever begins his 67th and final season.

Don’t take the word of two life-long Dodger fans that 88-year-old Vin Scully, the Voice of Da Bums since 1950, is the best. His awards and recognitions are way too numerous to list, so here are the greatest highlights. The American Sportscasters Association named him Sportscaster of the Century in 2000 and first on its all-time Top-50 list later. Numerous halls of fame, a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, etc.

Spring training has begun, reminding these two All-American boys how much we love baseball and especially baseball lore. Baseball, books and film make a cheesy concoction, never more so than in the 1984 movie The Natural based on the 1952 novel by Bernard Malamud.

Recently, we’ve been reflecting on our experiences over the past year of public service together and the lessons we’ve learned.

Many of those lessons are unique to the particular functions of the Controller’s Office and include managing the departments of the office. But we also made more topical observations about our experience and how it has helped to shape and refine our views.