No reasonable alternative offered

By Jeremy Christensen, Las Vegas

Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2014 | 2 a.m.

Millions of dollars are being spent to influence Nevada voters on the education initiative. Intelligent people can disagree on issues like taxes and education spending, but some things are facts.

Nevada has some of the worst per-pupil funding in the United States and it has for over a decade. Nevada has the lowest mining and casino taxes in the world. There is no lottery, and no personal or corporate income taxes in Nevada. We do have the 10th-highest sales tax, though.

Businesses pay some form of corporate income tax in every state except for Wyoming, South Dakota and Nevada.

The Tax Foundation’s 2014 State Business Tax Climate Index ranks the top four best states as Wyoming, South Dakota, Nevada and then Alaska. Alaska and Wyoming can get away with being in the top 4 because they tax oil, coal and natural gas to make up for not taxing other businesses. Per-pupil funding rankings for Alaska and Wyoming are in the top 10, while South Dakota and Nevada are in the bottom 10.

The weaknesses in our tax structure have been pointed out time and again since 1960.

Why shouldn’t out-of-state mining companies pay the same rate as our casinos? Why can’t our casinos pay a little more, when casinos pay so much more everywhere else? And why can’t Wal-Mart and McDonald’s pay some of our infrastructure like they do everywhere else?

The education initiative exists because the powerful have failed to offer a reasonable alternative for 54 years!