Sebelius hopes for a Gross Receipts Tax
Inside Liberty Watch Today - Feb. 13, 2006
The brain trust over at the free alternative weekly CityLife put their heads together and came up with 16 ways to make Las Vegas a better place. Editor Steve Sebelius and company believe they've "earned the right to bitch" about Las Vegas, which they admittedly do constantly, except when they take a break to promote, er satirize Liberty Watch the magazine.
Read through any issue of CityLife and one gets the feeling its writers wish they lived somewhere else. They tip their hand in the opening of their "Better days ahead" piece, that they have resigned themselves to being stuck in Sin City: "But for us, and for you, it's home." But, they fondly fanaticize about the "paradise of San Diego," "calm of Martha's Vineyard," "college cool of Austin," "coffee-drenched funk of Seattle," and the "urban bustle of Los Angeles, Chicago or New York."
But the would-be do-gooders at CityLife have a few suggestions to make us all live happily ever after, or at least make life in Vegas be more like the cities mentioned above. Most of the suggestions are so insipid it's surprising they made it to print. Emmily Bristol thinks we should get to know our neighbors. According to Bristol, your "neighbors represent a much more diverse slice of life and help expose you to a broader range of ideas." Ms. Bristol should mind her own business. LewRockwell.com columnist Fred Reed has it right: "I think we need homogeneity. Probably the greatest desire of humanity other than getting sex is avoiding diversity. Mostly, people can't stand each other. I respect their judgment."
Matt O'Brien thinks we should support the arts. If most people really wanted the arts, they'd stay in Boston or wherever, and tromp through the snow to see the Pops every once in a while. For better or worse, people would rather move to Vegas and park themselves in a dark, smoky tavern and piddle away their retirement funds. Actually, some of the finest art in the world has been on display at the Venetian and Steve Wynn's casinos during the past few years. But, O'Brien and Company don't consider it art, unless everyone gets to see the art for free.
CL ringleader Sebelius laughably rolls out the tired old saw for us to "Get informed and vote." On the contrary, in the words of Brad Edmond: "Voting is nothing more than a legal but immoral act of violent aggression. Abstaining from voting is the voluntary omission of a legal act of violent aggression, when indeed your vote could have resulted in more government handouts for you. Abstaining from voting is, in effect, making a personal sacrifice (however academic) in service of upholding an important moral principle."
Of course, we're supposed to volunteer, conserve water, preserve history, help the homeless, build more places for kids, provide better sex education, drive less, be more courteous behind the wheel, and for crying out loud lets require better campaign (CL spells it "campain") finance reporting.
Ms. Bristol has the bright idea that more affordable housing should be built. She doesn't say how, but makes reference to what is known as work force housing and she seems to be disturbed by the conversion of apartments into for-sale housing and the bulldozing of mobile home parks to make way for more economic uses for that land.
Work force housing ordinances require builders to set aside a certain number of homes they build and sell these homes at below market prices to individuals who qualify to buy the homes based upon income. However, the Home Builders Association of the Central Coast (of California) sites a number of problems with work force housing programs. The HBA report points out that these programs "raise the price of a project's market rate housing since those homes must subsidize the affordable units. The subsidy becomes taxation without representation on new homeowners and punishes middle class families." Ultimately, builders will avoid these projects, the HBA points out, "so affordable housing doesn't get built."
More supply and less demand will bring housing prices down. Period.
Sebelius also believes that if the gross receipts tax (GRT) were passed, Las Vegas would be a better place. "Not only is it fair," writes Sebelius, "but it would broaden the tax base so that the state's general fund is not dependent on casino and sales taxes." There is probably no tax that is as unfair as a gross receipts tax. Start-up businesses are creamed by a GRT, because it takes time before profits are earned. With government taking a cut off of the top, more small businesses will fail. And, it's small business that creates the new ideas and innovations that seduce customers away from the giant, established firms.
As economists Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway explain in their book, Out of Work, "Small businesses are a major source of jobs, especially new ones, in the American economy. It is large businesses that downsize their labor force. Small businesses create jobs and grow in size. Anything that destroys the profitability of small business enterprises ultimately lowers overall living standards and erodes the economic vitality of the United States."
By promoting the GRT, Sebelius is only carrying the water for his friends who occupy the executive wings on the Strip.
Ironically, on the heels of Sebelius's GRT endorsement, CL's Matt O'Brien says we should support mom-and-pop businesses. O'Brien should talk to his boss, with a GRT we will indeed "be drowning in a sea of Starbucks, Barnes & Nobles, Gaps and Panda Expresses."
The CityLife gang may hate it here, but 6,000 people a month move here seeking the better life that the economically robust Las Vegas offers. So it must not be all that bad here. But on a positive note, at least CityLifers didn't propose constructing a light rail system, paying teachers more, paying cops more, and the many other idiotic ideas constantly floated by the do-gooder crowd.
Doug French, Liberty Watch Columnist
