Time to Speak Up

Last month, we gave you a heads up on Mississippi's SB 2681. The Legislature passed it. And Governor Phil Bryant (R) quickly signed it into law.

So now, Mississippi has declared "License to Discriminate" to be state law. And believe it or not, two Nevada based companies are now in the thick of it.

How so? MGM & Caesars both operate casinos in Mississippi. And while the two gaming goliaths have put their money where their mouths are here in Nevada, they've yet to make a statement on Mississippi's new "License to Discriminate" statute.

They'll need to speak up soon. The damage is already being done there. And it's still spreading elsewhere. Kentucky now has "License to Discriminate" on its books. And G-O-TEA Culture Warriors are now pushing in Congress for a federal "License to Discriminate".

We know Cresent Hardy has an affinity for "segregation laws", but does Rep. Joe Heck (R-??!!) share that affinity? Will House Speaker John Boehner (R-??!!) actually allow a floor vote on this while continuing to block ENDA?

Clearly, the struggle over "License to Discriminate" continues. Even though it was stopped in Arizona, the G-O-TEA Culture Warriors have simply moved their fight elsewhere. They've succeeded in Mississippi. They may now try to pass a federal bill through Congress. And more state bills may not be out of the question.

The time to speak up is now. Now is a good time for those who claim to be pro-equality to put their money where their mouths are. After all, we know money talks in out system... Often more so than anything else. Just look at Arizona.

Endure THIS! Everything They "Know" Is Wrong.

Well, isn't this lovely? Nevada's biggest beneficiaries of government largesse now bite the hands that built them and tell us to "endure the pain".

“You can’t argue gloom and doom. People don’t want to hear it right now, not when hundreds of thousands remain out of work or have had their hours cut.” [...]

In a March 8 letter to faculty and students at UNLV’s Boyd Law School, Smatresk wrote of likely tuition increases to counter lost revenue from budget cutting: “These additional increases will undermine the law school’s successful formula and render it a mediocre institution.”

He’s also been quoted as saying “we’ve already squeezed the blood from the stone. This is horrific to talk about people like this.”

The Strip [casino executive] counseled Smatresk that UNLV should endure the pain during the current legislative session, then he should reach out for a communitywide commitment to rebuild the university during upcoming sessions.

“Neal heard the message, and he’s seemed to have softened his approach,” the second executive said.

Corporate executives and education reform advocates want to hear talk of academic, spending and administrative reform by the university and School District. They do not want the debate to be purely focused on the spending side of the equation.

"Endure the pain"? Really? I don't remember MGM Resorts doing that when they came close to bankruptcy and losing CityCenter. Nope, instead they reached out to Harry Reid and had him call the banks to secure the funding needed to save the project (and the company, and The Las Vegas Strip!).

"Endure the pain"? Seriously? I don't remember Caesars Entertainment doing that when they came close to going bankrupt as all their debts were catching up to them. Nope, instead they reached out to Harry Reid and had him insert a provision in The Recovery Act so they can restructure their debt and stay afloat (which also helped keep The Strip afloat!).

"Endure the pain"? The gaming industry didn't have to do too much of that, and they've always been able to snatch a life preserver when needed. But when our state is failing, our schools are about to be obliterated, and our chance at basic survival is iffy at the moment, we're told to just suck it up and "endure the pain"?

No more. We the people have endured enough.

Why is it that casino execs and their Wall Street corporate fat cat buddies can roll in the bailout money provided by our tax dollars, but then whey whine and scream and throw a fit and demand "reform" when we're trying to stay in school, get better jobs, and make better lives? We the people are being responsible, yet we have to "endure the pain" while they get help whenever they need/want it?

UNLV tuition has nearly doubled in the last 3 years, and it's slated to be raised even higher if "benevolent butcher" Sandoval's budget is adopted. In the mean time, 6 academic departments have been eliminated and more are slated to be axed if Sandoval gets his way. Many teachers and staff have already been laid off, and 350 more may be out of work if Brian's brutal budget is passed. Sorry, anonymous casino executive, but we have already "endured the pain" and we shouldn't be forced to endure our own community's death because a few big mining conglomerates and other
multinational corporations refuse to pay their fair share.

If that anonymous gaming exec were serious about making those "endure the pain" who have been sheltered for far too long, he would call his Carson City lobbyists and at least tell them not to whip against AB 336 and AB 428, simple bills that would respectively enact a long needed net-profits tax on large corporations (AB 336) and reduce the most heinous mining tax deductions (AB 428) that allow the mining industry to get away with getting something for nothing.

Elliott Parker, esteemed economist at UNR, had to go to Nevada Appeal last week to appeal to Governor Sandoval to remember common sense.

[... W]e are deciding which faculty to fire, and which students will lose their degree programs. These are productive faculty who have worked hard, to help us improve this university. We have been cutting budgets by firing many good people over the past four years. This is really getting old, and it is completely reversing years of effort to make Nevadans proud of their oldest university.

My university alone has already lost 350 positions, mostly very educated people who then left the state — and Nevada already has too few of those. Now we have 150 more jobs on the block, and many more to come since we are less than halfway to your target. We aren't that big of a university, and these cuts are starting to cripple us. Your proposals will do incredible damage.

You are mistaken when you say these cuts are best for the state's economy. As an economist who looks at the data, I know these cuts are bad for the economy. Cutting state expenditures during a recession, especially educational expenditures, makes the economy worse, not better.

We know that education matters for the future of the state, both K-12 and higher education. Without our monopoly on gambling, Nevada doesn't have many resources, but nowadays the most productive resource is in the knowledge and skills of the workforce. It will take many years to undo the damage we are doing now.

This is a death spiral. If we gut higher education, productive people and productive investment will flow out of the state, not in.

We know this is not a temporary problem. Gaming is a much smaller share of our economy than it used to be, even though our state budget still largely depends on it. We have known for years that we need a tax system that better reflects our economy, a tax system that can apply low rates to a much, much broader base. Yet we keep procrastinating on the solution.

The budget problem is not too big to solve. While the state's budget gap is a large fraction of the general fund, it is only 1 percent of our state economy. For the average resident, it is roughly the cost of eating out once a month.

And he's correct. We can't endure any more of this pain. It's killing us, and it's time to start letting our state and our people heal.

Ultimately, a diversified economy will help the gaming industry in that it will lessen their tax burden here in Nevada. I guess that's why this strange rant surprised me. I know MGM and Caesars and other Nevada gaming companies haven't had the easiest of times, but we're not asking anything unreasonable from them. In fact, none of the bills mentioned above even affect them!

So instead of forcing working class Nevadans to endure any more lethal "pain", why not let our state heal, make us less dependent upon the casinos, and invest in our schools that we so badly need to produce the kind of educated workforce that will make our economy healthier in the long run?

Looking Ahead: What's Next for Nevada? And for Vegas? (Part 1)

2010 has definitely been a wild ride... But what might 2011 possibly have in store for us?

Soon-to-be-Governor Sandoval is already loading up his future staff. Education activists are already threatening law suits if Governor Sandoval and/or The Legislature try to cut too much. And speaking of that budget, it will be quite brutal and internal GOP strife may cause a number of additional headaches and/or opportunities.

Nevada's unemployment rate is finally dropping... But that doesn't mean happy days will be here again so soon. Sheldon Adelson may be feeling bullish about the future, but that's largely because he's now investing in Asia... Only 15% of Las Vegas Sands' revenue actually comes from Vegas, and word has it the numbers at Wynn Resorts look awfully similar. Harrah's Entertainment will soon become Caesars Entertainment, but that still doesn't answer the question of when Harrah's/Caesars will finally finish the Octavius Tower at Caesars Palace, along with that "entertainment district" near Harrah's that they've promised for some time. Apparently MGM Resorts' bookings are up and Wall Street is feeling more bullish about MGM and Vegas these days, so things are looking better. Just don't expect a return to the mythical "glory days" any time soon.

So where am I going with all my wild and crazy ramblings? Come on. I laid it all out for you in March.

[T]he casinos can no longer be counted upon as a "free ride". We can't just expect new casino construction to prop up demand for construction jobs, which props up demand for new housing, which props up demand for housing construction, which props up the rest of Southern Nevada's economy. We may have lucked out in seeing this model work from 1989 to 2007, but all it really did was hide the weaknesses in this shaky economic model that ended up being exposed when "The Great Recession" hit and all the artificial demand for new casinos, new homes, new whatever fell like a row of dominoes.

The Cosmopolitan will be opening next month, but once that opens we probably won't be seeing any new Strip casino-resorts opening for at least five years. We've really learned the hard way that we can no longer rely upon an unsustainable "growth begets growth" model of construction being fueled by artificially inflated "demand" fueled by real estate speculation. Those days ended three years ago, and it makes absolutely no sense to even try to return to that model. Even though the gaming industry will most certainly improve, that and the "growth industry" that has come with it can no longer be our sole source of sustenance.

Nevada needs to change, that much is clear. We need to change dramatically. We need to change our priorities. We need to change the way we think of our economy. We need to go beyond our "comfort zone" of relying upon the casinos for everything, slapping together "quick fix budgets" loaded with "legislative band-aids and duct tape", continuing to delay the building the kind of infrastructure our state needs to move forward, and putting so much effort into making today's "quick fix" that we forget about the challenges facing us tomorrow.

So how do we change? Later, I'll be talking about where I think we need to go.