Nevada has one of the most underfunded and inequitably funded school systems in the nation. Nevada has a ballot measure, called “The Education Initiative,” or TEI, to raise money for the schools. Guess who is opposed to it?
“BIG BUSINESS FIGHTS NEVADA BALLOT INITIATIVE: Nevada businesses have poured more than $2 million into defeating an initiative on the November ballot that would tax businesses to raise an estimated $700 million a year for public education. The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and the Nevada Resort Association are among the biggest opponents of the initiative, called Question 3. The tax would apply to businesses with more than one million dollars in revenue each year and it would apply a 2 percent tax to a portion of the businesses’ revenue.
“- The Nevada AFL-CIO was initially a sponsor of Question 3 – but dropped its support. The union cited concerns that it could cost members their jobs and raise the cost of living in the state when it voted to not support the initiative [http://bit.ly/ZoNAFt ]. The Nevada State Education Association is the initiative’s other sponsor. NSEA – which collected nearly 150,000 signatures to put Question 3 on the ballot – argues that the funds can be used to reduce class sizes, purchase technology for the classroom and make other improvements to Nevada schools. Supporters had raised over $1 million to support Question 3 as of the most recent filing deadline, and total spending on both sides is expected to be significantly higher. More from the Star-Telegram: http://bit.ly/1vodMhi.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and the Nevada Resort Association are among the biggest opponents of the initiative, called Question 3. The tax would apply to businesses with more than one million dollars in revenue each year and it would apply a 2 percent tax to a portion of the businesses’ revenue.”
Does anyone have a sense of the annual income of the various “resorts” in Las Vegas that would be devastated by the imposition of this tax? I’m just guessing that it exceeds the one million dollars.
LikeLike
CROSS POSTED AT
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Nevada-Big-Business-Wants-in-Best_Web_OpEds-America_Commerce_Diane-Ravitch_Education-141016-924.html#comment516227
with this comment:
COMMENT: 15,880/50 (districts/states) the division of schools districts, 15,880 in 50 states, make it impossible to know what is happening in the schools next door, let alone in NYC (the largest district in the nation) where they decimated the public schools, and in LA, (the second largest district) where corruption was blatant and rampant in order to monetarize education by Bamboozling the people
http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
and selling as “choice’ magic elixirs such as charter schools,
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
Knowing what manipulation and outright fraud is passing as ‘reform’ now that the schools are failing because they have been underfunded and been emptied of the professional staff of veteran educators. Krugman talks about inventing failures,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/opinion/krugman-inventing-a-failure.html#story-continues-3 so the ‘fix’ can change everything, and this was the plan!
But the real motive for ending public education, beside making it impossible for the middle class to survive with the necessary skills, is to end democracy, which depends on shared knowledge.
LikeLike
Of course they do. Uneducated people are the ones most likely to have few job choices and tolerate working for minimum wage and no benefits in repetitive, boring jobs.
LikeLike
Agreed. For example, Walmart rose above the ranks in the last 20 years on the backs of this said humble profile of society, and what have the Waltons given back? Even fewer state side jobs and yet millions into buisness-education (emphasis on business) models that will prevent this brow beaten segment and their children from ever being unshackled to their station of birth on the “playing field”. This is in part due to an education that will ensure that they can never compete with outsourcing or the next villager who is willing to work under the same degrading conditions that their predecessor decided to speak up about but alas, overstayed her welcome and was fired. I suppose this is the Walton’s version of being “patriotic”… while under our banner you must see no evil, hear no evil, and, Sam-forbid, speak no evil.
This propagation of false patriotism has made huge strides for like minded entities like the US Department of War, the textbook industry, and of course many personalities in our Congress, where candidates are unabashedly flaunting their convictions that shipping jobs overseas “IS the American way.”
Our public education system is the Rosetta stone in every aspect of progressive social justice for every underserved and underrepresented segment of society…that is why it is under such blatant attack, why most political ideologies have shifted south (I mean, right), and why truly progressive thinking is considered [by too many] strychnine in the well.
LikeLike
Didn’t finish: I mean who else is going to spend their lives making beds, slinging hamburgers and sweeping floors but people with low levels of education and special needs students?? Anyone with a good education or strong vocational skills is going to seek work that requires more skills than most jobs in the tourist industry provides and pays better.
LikeLike
These are sad times if even the AFL-CIO backs out of supporting the interests of public education. Business tries to intimidate workers, and the paucity of decent paying jobs puts workers in a chronic state of fear.
Maybe the Casino owners think all the future workers in Nevada need to know if how to be a croupier. Sad times indeed!
LikeLike
Educated proles can be dangerous, especially if they develop the habit of thinking for themselves.
Better to train them to withstand tedium, intimidation and constant surveillance, while monetizing all three in the process.
LikeLike
The state has always relied on cheap, transient labor, and I don’t expect it to change any time in the near future. I lived in the state for 26 years, so I know.
LikeLike
http://www.reviewjournal.com/columns-blogs/steve-sebelius/fearing-margin-tax
Posted date October 19, 2014 – 12:03am
Fearing the margin tax
Steve Sebelius
Covers the Legislature, as well as local politics and policy and the activities of Nevada’s congressional delegation. His column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday in Opinion. He also writes the daily blog, “Slash Politics,” found at slashpolitics.com.
Email
Follow on: Two realities, one problemSteve Sebelius
More Columns/Blogs
By STEVE SEBELIUS
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
There may be a good reason the elites of the Nevada business community are so vehemently campaigning against The Education Initiative.
But it’s not what you think.
There’s certainly a reason you’re seeing billboards, TV ads, mail pieces and spokespeople endlessly parroting the line that The Education Initiative is a “deeply flawed,” “job-killing” tax that will cost the state business.
But what if it’s not the shortcomings of the tax that’s behind the anti-tax campaign?
What if there’s another reason the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, the Nevada Resort Association, the Nevada Mining Association and their allies of convenience in organized labor fear and hate this tax?
What if they hate it not because of its flaws (and there are a few) but because of its successes?
The Nevada State Education Association actually succeeded in writing a tax that the corporate elite of Nevada tried and failed to stop in court.
The teachers union had the unmitigated gall to succeed in gathering more than the required number of signatures in the various congressional districts of Nevada. And they went on to boldly champion the measure in the Legislature as lawmakers (especially Democrats) uncomfortably squirmed in their seats.
And now, having survived court challenges, legislative indifference and a campaign of more than $2 million spent against it, the voters are about to have their say on Question 3.
Could that be what Nevada’s corporate elite despises about The Education Initiative most of all?
The Nevada Legislature was long ago captured by the commercial interests that run the state — first mining, then railroads, then gambling, land development and general business. The cumbersome, Balkanized legislative process makes it easy to kill bills, especially with a majority of friendly lawmakers from both parties on your side.
The courts are a less certain prospect (after all, judges failed to stop the petition from going forward). But Nevada’s courts are generally quite friendly to business.
The executive branch? Gov. Brian Sandoval — who now pledges an earnest effort to reform the state’s tax system in 2015, predicting success where his predecessors have failed — is not exactly an independent. He’s come out squarely against The Education Initiative from the start.
But direct democracy? The people themselves? Well, that’s a frightening prospect for Nevada’s corporate elite, because the people are, at the very least, unpredictable.
Sure, people might buy the “deeply flawed” message endlessly repeated by opponents. (Does anybody doubt we’d be hearing the exact same words no matter what tax was proposed?) The public probably won’t remember how the same business elites have fought nearly every attempt to tax them, no matter the vehicle.
But then again, they might not. They might start wondering why the dry cleaner in Palm Springs, Calif., can pay his state’s corporate income tax, but the dry cleaner in Las Vegas somehow can’t, or shouldn’t. They might ask why the Ford dealer in St. George, the bakery in Phoenix or the insurance company in Boise can all pay, but their counterparts here must be shielded from paying their fair share for Nevada’s schools.
And that’s only if they pay; the tax won’t affect the vast majority of small businesses. Do you suppose the thousands of chamber members exempt from the tax might start to wonder why their group is spending $578,222 to fight a levy they’ll never pay?
If people start asking those uncomfortable questions, things could get quite ugly come Election Day. Why, for the first time in decades, business is looking at a tax it might actually have to pay!
So perhaps that — and not any legitimate shortcoming of The Education Initiative — is the real reason Nevada’s corporate elites are deploying every trick short of skywriting to stop The Education Initiative. They’ve succeeded so far because they dominate most every official forum of Nevada civic life.
But they can’t control the people. Let’s hope the people figure that out before the ballots are counted.
Steve Sebelius is a Las Vegas Review-Journal political columnist who blogs at SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter (@SteveSebelius) or reach him at 702-387-5276 or ssebelius@reviewjournal.com.
LikeLike