Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Doing more, not less

Friday, Feb. 25, 2005 | 5:29 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

WEEKEND EDITION

February 26 - 27, 2005

Give people a living wage. At a minimum.

It would appear that the move by members of the Legislature to pass a minimum wage bill this year is gaining some momentum. At the very least, it is gaining some votes. By the time this is published, the Nevada State Legislature may have moved the popular piece of legislation from the Assembly to the Senate for final action. Or not.

When the Assembly Committee on Commerce and Labor heard testimony on this bill earlier this week, it was abundantly clear that it had overwhelming support among the Democrats and Republicans on that committee. Sure, there were two or three holdouts, but most legislators understood two very important facts.

First, the testimony from almost everyone that trying to live, raise a family and get ahead -- however slightly -- on $5.15 an hour is impossible. In fact, even the proposed $6.15 an hour, which would bring that minimum wage worker in around $13,000 a year, is barely high enough to look up to the federal poverty line. Secondly, the voters of Nevada have already declared themselves. Almost 70 percent of Nevadans have already voted once for a constitutional amendment which, if passed once more, would cement the wage minimum and increases forever into our Constitution.

That could be disastrous one day. As a matter of good government, it is incumbent upon the Legislature to pass a responsible wage into law with reasonable yearly increases. A law, by definition, can be changed in the future should circumstances require it. Re-amending the Constitution is an entirely different and very difficult matter.

Besides, what kind of legislator would rely on initiative-type government when he or she can prove to the voters that calm, reasoned and responsible thinkers every two years can do just as well as an emotionally charged electorate. At least that is what all of our American Government textbooks teach us!

Now, I am all for deliberating on all manner of legislation that is pushed or pulled through the legislative sausage-making machinery. Heavens knows that there have been some doozies that have made their way onto the governor's desk and into the law of the state without so much as a reasonable read by a majority of the elected lawmakers. But there are times when deliberating a bill to death is bad for the public's business.

This bill, if it isn't passed already, is one of those no-brainers that must become law. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard the chamber of commerce types threaten lawmakers at the national and state levels about the grave danger we are putting our business sector in by messing with the minimum wage. But I can tell you that every time either Congress or the Nevada Legislature has increased the minimum wage, neither the sky fell nor did the business census decrease.

In short, the only thing that did happen is that people at the very low rung of the economic ladder got a slightly bigger piece of the rock that continually keeps them pressed close to the bottom. My point is that we have bigger issues at the Legislature this year to waste one moment longer on a bill that everyone knows -- but some may not admit -- is the right and the responsible thing to do.

If we want to encourage people to work themselves off the public welfare dole, we should at least make the rewards of work more attractive than a taxpayer-generated check every month.

One of those bigger issues is the property tax problem. Make no mistake, it is a problem. Clearly, there are many people with many different ideas about how to solve the puzzle, which so far has confounded our elected officials. To sift through all of those ideas, the legislators need time. That means that they shouldn't waste time on the no-brainers like minimum wage. Taxes are another matter that needs some thought.

I realize I may be in the minority on this one, but it strikes me as ridiculous that the governor, many legislators and even a Nevada congressman or two from Washington are encouraging our lawmakers to give hundreds of millions of dollars in tax monies back to the people before we even know how much money will be needed to fund the needs of the people for the next two years.

For example, I can guarantee you that there will not be enough money to fully fund our public school system. No matter how much the various school districts say they need to pay teachers, buy books, increase staff and otherwise prepare our children for adulthood and good citizenship, the answer from the Legislature will be less. No matter how much our university and community college system says it needs for teachers, programs, buildings and whatever else goes into making institutions of higher learning the kind that people want to attend, the answer will be less.

And no matter how many times we hear the kinds of stories we don't want to hear about, such as Nevada's homeless being shunted aside, discarded and abused -- while we refuse to fund our mental health system at levels appropriate enough to care for these people -- the fact remains that our ears will be deaf to the simple answers that suggest that while money may not be the total cure, it will go a long way to making better that kind of societal ugliness.

So let's encourage our lawmakers to spend their valuable time deliberating the important matters that affect our state. We have what may be a one-time opportunity to fix a lot of what ails us in Nevada by tapping into our surplus and expending the dollars where they are needed instead of just following the political instincts of the kingmakers who know that giving people back their tax monies is good for winning elections.

Nevada is ripe for the kind of leadership that tells people the truth. One of those truths is that raising the minimum wage by a dollar is good business. Another truth is that investing our tax monies into education, health care and needed infrastructure is the certain way to continued success. If we want to grow and prosper we have to do more, not less. And that means that Nevadans deserve more than the minimum from our lawmakers.

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