Under the sympathetic stewardship of Assemblyman David Goldwater, D-Las Vegas -- who once sat on Hillary Clinton's committee to secretly plan the socialization of America's entire medical system -- spokesmen for Nevada's teachers unions were gently prodded Feb. 15 to explain to the Assembly Taxation Committee in Carson City precisely how they would use the $250 million they hope to raise with their proposed business income tax.
(The use of the word "business" should not be allowed to disguise the fact this levy would be Nevada's first income tax. Any Nevadan filing with his or her personal income tax return a list of expenses and deductions for a home-based business would have to register and file under this plan. Assemblyman Greg Bower, R-Reno, points out this would require the Legislature to create a "Nevada mini IRS." Furthermore, the teachers to date have not even acknowledged the mass exodus their scheme would create among absentee firms that now pay Nevada's secretary of state for the privilege of incorporating in one of the last American bailiwicks without corporate taxes or IRS information-sharing -- let alone what that exodus would cost.)
The funny thing was -- even though Mr. Goldwater mae sure only supporters of the plan were allowed to speak (opponents will reportedly get their say this week), the teachers union lobbyists and executives were unable or unwilling to answer the most basic questions about how all this new loot would be spent, or what results they are willing to guarantee in return.
Ken Lange, executive director of the teachers union, told the committee a 2 percent raise for all Nevada teachers would cost only $42 million of the hoped-for $250 million.
But is there any mechanism to guarantee some percentage of the new funds would actually flow to teacher salaries, committee member Sandra Tiffany wanted to know. And if so, how much? Some shills for the proposal are now saying even $250 million wouldn't be enough to bring Nevada teacher salaries up to par -- that once the union gets its business tax, other state taxes will still have to be raised to generate at least $30 million more just for Nevada to "catch up" to the per-pupil spending of urban states with higher costs of living ... before we even start to talk about buying more schoolbooks.
"If you give everybody a 3, 4, 5 percent raise it doesn't leave much for education programs," Ms. Tiffany pointed out.
Predictably, the proponents responded only in generalities. "Pay teachers as much as possible without jeopardizing the schools' ability to get other jobs done," suggested Mr. Lange.
And what if the teachers unions (start ital)were(end ital) to somehow lay hands on wealth beyond the dreams of Croesus? Are they then willing to guarantee that such above-average spending will result in above-average SAT and ACT scores? Above-average admission rates for Nevada high school juniors and seniors applying to any of the nation's top 100 private colleges and universities? And are they offering to somehow pay all this money back if those results -- or any (start ital)other(end ital) pre-established and measurable goals -- are not achieved in two years? In three years? In six or 10 years?
Of course not.
Americans are fleeing the bureaucratized, government-run schools in droves, opting for home-schooling or private academies -- especially in jurisdictions where fledgling voucher and tax-credit programs are finally beginning to ease the burden on poor and middle-class parents who have otherwise been forced to pay double, supporting failed public schools they do not use.
In other states, educators with real innovation and improvement in mind are learning to embrace and welcome such competition, since it forces a thinning of the bureaucratic deadwood and a new emphasis on focusing money and energy where they really count: directly at the interface between teacher and student.
But in Nevada -- where double-dipping teachers now guard the key legislative gates, assuring their union sponsors that such real reforms will continue to meet the same fate as Richard the Third's little nephews in the Tower -- "They don't want to tell you how much they want," concluded an exasperated Assemblywoman Tiffany.
Let alone what -- if anything -- we'd get for it.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 1475 Terminal Way, Suite E for Easy, Reno, NV 89502. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html
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Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
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