What do you get for a quarter of a million dollars worth of visioning?
"A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain."
— Lazarus Long, aka Robert A. Heinlein
The Legislature shelled out a quarter of a million dollars to conduct one more study in a futile bid for some holy grail that would allow government to continue to grow apace even while the ecomony is crashing down on the heads of the private sector. And guess what we are getting?
Mo' taxes, mo' taxes, mo' taxes.
The initial report is full of high sounding verbiage that rings hollow, such as suggesting that the economic base and state tax structure be diversified by "Attracting growth industries (e.g. vertical integration of existing industries, economic development incentives, leveraging existing infrastructure)."
It is full of buzz words and phrases like metrics, securitization, infrastructure for philanthropy and constitutional barriers.
Like the one prohibiting a Nevada income tax?
But the meddlesome do-goers could not stop there. No, the 20-member Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group devoted a whole section of its preliminary report on how to improve our "quality of life" and counter our bad habits.
Since when is it any business of the government as to how we conduct our lives? I thought the people were supposed to tell those in government how to behave, not the other way around.
It turns out the problem is not that the government is too fat, no, we are.
"Obesity is the fastest growing health problem nationwide," the report shockingly reveals. "Nevada’s share of obese population is low, but it has risen the fastest across the West over the past decade from 14% to 25%. An achievable goal would be to return this figure to 14% by 2030. Intermediate goals are 20% by 2015 and 18% by 2020."
I guess they are going to wean us off excessive groceries by removing the temptation by depleting our bank accounts with taxes.
Wait, no, they are going to get us to exercise.
"Linking recreation to health and to Nevada’s outdoor culture, adult exercise provides a broad measure of well-being," the nannies solemnly tell us. "Nevada’s share of adults who exercise fell between 1998 and 2008 from 76% to 72%. The short-term goal, therefore, should be to return this figure to 76% by 2015 and to have it rise to 80% in 2020 and to 83% by 2030."
They'll make us walk to work because we can't afford cars. That also saves the state from having to spend money on roads instead of salaries, benefits and consultants and their boilerplate reports.
Included in this Vision Stakeholder Group's executive summary is this "vision": "Our governance is efficient, effective, inclusive, and accountable. We monitor results and demonstrate measurable progress. We respect each others' points of view."
I'd have a lot more respect for this view if it hadn't cost $250,000.
