LETTER: Nevada occupational licensing rules often hurt the economically disadvantaged

The Review-Journal hit the nail on the head with its Sunday editorial on occupational licensing. This bad idea impoverishes everyone because it makes criminals out of anyone who cuts hair without permission from the government and without paying thousands of dollars (like a fine that a criminal would pay).

In a free country, one can do anything one wants as long as one does not initiate force on another — and cutting hair is initiating force on no one.

This is my complaint against the Las Vegas City Council, the Clark County Commission and the state of Nevada. These crony capitalist laws affect the homeless and poor the most.

I got sick in 2017. I couldn’t work, lost my car and became impoverished and homeless. I spent 18 months in and out of shelters, so I understand more than I did four years ago.

If I were a hairdresser and, as my health improved, I scraped up enough money to buy a pair of shears and some brushes and cut people’s hair for $5 a head, which at least would get me hot food for the day, what would those in the political class do when they found out I was cutting hair without a license? They’d throw me in jail like a thief.

If they continue to pass and enforce impoverishing, special-interest laws such as occupational licensing requirements, housing ordinances and minimum wage laws, we’ll become like Los Angeles and San Francisco, the biggest criminalizers in the nation. Lower- and middle-class Las Vegans will also rapidly slip into the homeless class, as has happened in California.

When government treats the public like thieves, government impoverishes the public like thieves.