LETTERS: The public isn’t criticizing property tax caps
To the editor:
Sometimes an article in the paper can reveal the mindset of government leadership in just a few words. For example, a recent report on North Las Vegas (“Emergency fiscal law changes slow-moving for NLV,” Saturday Review-Journal) contained this gem: “One (proposed plan) would see state legislators lift oft-criticized caps on local government commercial and residential property tax collections, which could allow for larger tax increases.”
“Oft-criticized” tax caps? Criticized by whom? Have I missed something? Has the Review-Journal been reporting on mass protests by the people of Clark County in front of all the city halls, the Clark County Government Center and the Grant Sawyer Building, demanding the repeal of the property tax caps? Hardly.
Perhaps the reporter meant to write the tax caps have been oft-criticized by the six-figure bureaucrats with their seven-figure net worths, for whom higher taxes on the peasants mean more raises for them and the government unions bleeding the city dry.
State Assembly Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick, who was mentioned in the article as opposing wholesale revisions to the tax-cap law, loves North Las Vegas. It’s her home, and I’m sure it drives her crazy to know how badly previous administrations mismanaged her city’s finances. However, whatever solution is crafted, the property tax law — all of it — must be off the table.
This business of running North Las Vegas, as well as the rest of the local governments in this valley, for the benefit of government insiders has to stop. The sooner, the better, and the more emphatically, the better.
KNIGHT ALLEN
LAS VEGAS
Minimum wage
To the editor:
From President Barack Obama to Nevada state Sen. Tick Segerblom and beyond, we now hear the cry to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour (“It’s time for Nevada to move forward, increase minimum wage,” April 13 Review-Journal). The problem is that we are being lied to about how this will lift millions of people out of poverty.
Let’s look at the real repercussions. Sen. Segerblom seems to have forgotten that we all live in Nevada and that by law, Nevada is required to pay $1 more than the federal minimum wage. So Nevada businesses could be forced to pay $11.10 per hour to people who have no working skills and are trying to learn how to work and hold a job. These are supposed to be start-up jobs, not permanent jobs. You won’t hear that from the people wanting this increase so that they can get more votes in future elections.
The U.S. will continue to see more young people who want to work but can’t get jobs because employers can’t train them at $11.10 per hour, plus payroll taxes, workers compensation insurance, etc. The fact is that President Obama and Sen. Segerblom are really giving the shaft to America’s young future workers.
When I was a teenager, I didn’t care what I was paid because I was learning to work. I made mistakes, and my employer corrected them. I learned that by helping my employer be more successful, I could earn pay raises.
Maybe it is time for our politicians to get real jobs. I strongly suggest that the people who voted for Sen. Segerblom rethink their votes and make a change for the better.
BOB DUBIN
LAS VEGAS
Reid and lawbreakers
To the editor:
Sen. Harry Reid has again shown us his hypocrisy. He has the gall to say that the supporters of Cliven Bundy stand with a lawbreaker, yet I see Sen. Reid standing with 11 million undocumented people who broke the law by illegally coming into this country. I guess that most militia members vote Republican. As the vote goes, so goes Sen. Reid. How unfortunate.
Sen. Reid, either you are against lawbreakers or you are for lawbreakers. You can’t pick which laws you will enforce and which laws you won’t.
STANLEY K. SCHONE
LAS VEGAS
