Cresent Hardy's freshman year in the Assembly

During Cresent Hardy's freshman term in the State Assembly he favored smokers, ignored the pleas of educators to stabilize funding, attempted to reduce wages for workers on rural public works projects, voted against prohibiting discrimination in employment and housing based upon gender, joined other Republicans in arguing that people enjoy too many entitlements, and blamed the press for making the community a joke.

Hardy (R., District 20) supported legislation (signed into law by Governor Brian Sandoval) to allow smokers to drink, eat a snack or a full meal at the same time in some restaurant areas. He took this view even though the Campaign for Smoke Free Kids reports that smoking costs Nevadans $565 million-a-year or about $554 per household and causes a loss of Nevada productivity of an estimated $903 million. These amounts do not include health costs from exposure to secondhand smoke, smoking-caused fires, smokeless tobacco use, or cigar and pipe smoking. Tobacco use also imposes additional costs such as workplace productivity losses and damage to property.

Hardy voted no on a bill to ensure sufficient funding for K-12 public education for the 2011-2013 biennium. He disagreed with the claim that Nevadans spends less per pupil than other states arguing that Nevada provides somewhere between $9,000 and $14,000 per student thus ranking education in Nevada at 26th in the nation. Hardy is reported to have said that he thinks the budget for education is fair.

However, the 2010 annual survey by Education Week magazine ranks Nevada 50th in the nation for the quality of its public K-12 education and gives Nevada an overall report card score of D. The nation, as a whole, earned a C. Nevada's overall score was dragged down in four main categories: 1) potential for success, 2) K-12 achievement, 3) ratio of teachers to students need and 4) school finance. Nevada ranks 48th in the nation in education spending. On average Nevada politicians spend 1/3rd the nations average and have a higher average teacher to student ratio (19.41 to 15.38). According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Nevada students in grades 4 and 8 are below average in math, reading, science and writing.

If one focuses on overall outcome instead of spending input it's clear to see why Nevada is ranked so low. To that end, Hardy joined in supporting a bill that required the Board of Regents to increase their focus on auditing. In another piece of legislation, ( Assembly Bill 222) he agreed to install a four-tier educator evaluation system. A four-tier system represents a shift from the current binary system that classifies teachers as either satisfactory or unsatisfactory. The new categories include highly effective, effective, minimally effective and ineffective.

Unfortunately, he and his fellow supporters of these two pieces of legislation are simply attempting to shift the performance problem from a lack of funds to blaming administrators and teachers. Neither of the legislative initiatives have any merit, primarily because both audits and evaluations 1) occur after a performance has occurred, 2) are statistically unreliable and biased towards favoritism, 3) create fear and anxiety and 4) put up barriers to productivity.

In higher education, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and University of Nevada, Reno will pay 13 percent more in tuition this fall which will add about $400 a year for full-time students.

During a recent town town hall meeting, Hardy told the group that he introduced a bill (Assembly Bill 312) on prevailing wage in order to improve the benefits to contractors and reduce costs on public work projects. The bill died in committee.

Specifically, the bill attempted to reduce overtime expenses for contractors and eliminate collective bargaining on overtime for workers on public works projects. In addition, the bill attempted to modify the way the Labor Commissioner sets prevailing wages for public works projects performed in a county. The intent was to build into the Commissions survey the lower wages paid to workers in rural areas.

Hardy voted against a bill that prohibited discrimination in employment and housing based upon gender. The record doesn't show why a state legislator would vote against discrimination. Perhaps it's because discrimination is adequately covered by federal and constitutional law. Nonetheless, bills such as this are often introduced to tease out a legislators biases.

During the town hall meeting Hardy suggested that the state and nation are teetering on a slippery slop because of an attitude of entitlements. Entitlements are a hot topic between Republican and Democrats these days. Nationally Republicans seem to be after social security, medicare and medicaid. Nationally Democrats have put up cuts in defense and farm, livestock and dairy subsidies in addition to ending tax breaks for the oil and other industries.

Recipients of livestock subsidies (entitlements) from farms in Nevada totaled $12,848,000 from 1995-2010. Then there are subsidies in fishing, dairy, mining, oil and gas, public land development, water development and even the chemical industries. And there are set-asides for public works projects, and community development project block grants. In the very near future, Hardy must define which entitlements (subsidies) he prefers and those he wishes would go away or be diverted to the private sector.

Hardy, is and will remain under press scrutiny while he is a member of the Assembly. In his recent town hall meeting, Hardy said he was looking forward to having some youth in his life. He is tired, he said, of dealing with these hateful old people. He may get his wish, but the distribution of the population may be different than he desires.

The average Assembly district in Clark County has a population of 64,229 and the majority of Clark county is Democrat. Further, the population he serves is no longer all-white ranchers, farmers, contractors and allegedly corrupt water right buyers and sellers.

His region, like others in Clark County, has boomed, adding to its growth among minority residents; Hispanics grew 82% and Asians dwarfed even that at 116%. With the combined minority population now at 46%, whites may fast becoming the Nevada minority.

In addition to representing a minority population, Nevada's Hispanics tend to vote as a bloc, opening the possibility that they may also be treated as a community of interest in drawing boundaries.

Certainly, the Hispanic bloc will look unfavorably at wage limitations. Minorities, including those with a gender issue, will not look kindly on gender discrimination and younger people are less included to smoke than the old timers. And the old people he is tired of dealing with will certainly have something to say about cuts in social security, and trading off medicare, medicaid for private sector vouchers.

Hardy's choices during his freshman year reflect a narrow view of the health, educational and economic needs of his constituency. They deserve better.

Michael M. McGreer writes on public policy. His books: No Harm, No Foul, Bioterrorism in the 21st century, and All Rivers Flow West, are both available on Amazon. Click here to see his blog

Who is Ayn Rand and why does she matter?

Some Republicans and their Tea Party colleagues have adopted Russian born Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum, (aka Ayn Rand) as their intellectual and cultural center of their party.

Russian born and educated Rand (1905-1982) came to the United States in 1926 and developed a philosophy she called Objectivism. On the surface, this philosophy emphasized the basic tenants of a free society including individual rights, property rights and laissez-faire capitalism, enforced by a constitutionally limited government.

In fact, Ms. Rand's philosophy goes well beyond democratic tenants and creates a pseudo-intellectual cult holding that doing for others is contemptible; that doing for self is the purpose of human life; that altruism and service are somehow pathologies pushed by collectivists and should be subordinated to selfishness and greed.

Those holding with Rand's views oppose welfare, unemployment insurance, support for the poor and middle-class, regulation of industry and government provision for roads or other infrastructure. They insisted that law enforcement, defense and the courts are the only appropriate areas for government and that all taxation should be purely voluntary.

Conservative groups such as Freedom Works, the Heritage Foundation, and individuals such as Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, John Stossel and Sean Hannity aggressively push Rand's philosophy to the Tea Party, conservatives and libertarians.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) quotes extensively from Rand's novels at Congressional hearings. His father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), argues that Rand's book Atlas Shrugged tells the truth. Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas references Rand's work in his autobiography. Ronald Reagan dubbed Rand as the unofficial "novelist laureate" of his Administration.

Rep Paul Ryan (R-WI), the GOP's budget guru, cites Rand as the inspiration for his 2012 Path to Prosperity budget plan which recently passed the republican controlled House by a vote of 235-193. Nevada Republicans Dean Heller, and Joe Heck joined the Republican majority by voting yea. Every Democrat, including Shelley Berkley, voted no.

Ryan described Social Security as a collectivist system and his Prosperity Plan guts Medicare, Medicaid, and a host of housing, food, and educational support programs, leaving the country's middle-class and most vulnerable citizens devastated. By transforming Medicare into a vouchers system he undoes Medicare's ability to shoulder risk. This approach transfers that risk to individuals while leaving insurance companies with the ability to deny services and raise prices faster than inflation. His plan uses approximately half of the freed money to reduce taxes on the most wealthy Americans.

To support this position, Ryan relies on dubious assertions, questionable assumptions, fishy figures and Rand inspired pseudo-intellectual.

Critics of Rand and her followers point out that such ideas split the population into two groups: The most wealthy, and everyone else and thus rejects the major reason for a constitutional government, i.e. the promotion of the common good.

To achieve Objectivism, Rand's book hero's commit borderline rape, blow-up buildings, and dynamite oil fields which Rand portrays as admirable and virtuous fulfillment of the characters' personal will and desires. Today neo-conservatives push warfare in the Middle-east in the name of oil.

Rand's early diaries gush with admiration for William Hickman, a serial killer who raped and murdered a young girl. Hickman showed no remorse, a trait Rand found admirable. Rand also dismissed the feminist movement as "false" and "phony," denigrated both Arabs and Native Americans as "savages" saying that the latter had no rights and that Europeans were right to take North American lands by force. She expressed horror that taxpayer money was being spent on government programs aimed at educating "subnormal children" and helping the handicapped.

Rand embraced atheism, and opposed anything she regarded as mysticism or super-naturalism, including all forms of religion. She was pro-choice. These views are never mentioned in Rand based propaganda.

In 1953 Rand told Mike Wallace that altruism was evil, that selfishness is a virtue, and that anyone who succumbs to weakness or frailty is unworthy of love. For some, that is current Republican policy.

Sometimes when politicians speak a little truth comes through.

To understand the local approach to public budgeting it is only necessary to listen to what those currently in power say. Take Dave Bennett, the term-limited city councilman now running for Mayor. He admitted recently to participating in 12-years of budget hearings. Add to that current Mayor Susan Holechecks admission to the Friends of the Founding Fathers and the Tea Party of Mesquite that when times were limited people took their eyes off the ball. Holecheck, who want's to retain her seat, was talking about employees union contracts.

Then comes Tim Hacker, the City Manager, who tried to defend to the Friends and Tea Partiers that the city actually planned for deficits. Now that sounded sensible until he admitted that they planned to spend more than projected revenue supported. Of course that's a crazy approach to budgeting. A budget is a planning document that tells staff and employees what resources they have in order to deliver a level of services. If the budget is inflated it leads staff to believe they have resources they do not have, which leads to overspending on accounts. Which is exactly what happened.

A lot of well meaning people are suggesting to the Mayor and Council whose Ox to gore and which to save. Unfortunately, it's an exercise in fatality. The city will not have enough operating revenue to continue its current level of services without either continuing to sell capital assets, cutting employees, raising taxes, calling for bond elections, or attempting to capitalize on federal reinvestment funds (if any are available). Maybe all of the above.

In actual practice rationalizing revenue with expenditures will require a completely different approach to budgeting then currently in practice. Unfortunately, if the mayor, council and the city manager had the ability to change, the city would not be facing its current economic situation.

There are several reasons for doubting improvements in budget governance. First, it appears that the mayor, as chief executive, has not collaborated with the council to set in place an appropriate economic policy to deal with the current situation. If they had, the city would not be facing the current situation.

Second, it appears that the city manager has not established an appropriate execution strategy to carryout a sound economic policy. Had the city manager provided such a strategy it is likely that the mayor and the council would have followed. Had this been done, the city would not be facing the current situation.

This proper linkage between politicians setting policy and the manager setting a methodology and implementing is critical to a smooth operating city government.

The current fiscal problems are not new and go back several budget cycles with Bennett, admittedly, listening to the same old things but apparently doing nothing to change except to purchase or annex unnecessary land. The Mayor, admittedly knew that labor negotiations needed attention, but nothing substantial was done to avoid the upcoming problems of higher salaries against limited revenues. Finally, the city manager saw the problem but, admittedly, set a budget with spending in excess of projected revenue

Being an elected officials is not about pomp and circumstance. It's not about personalities or friendships. It is about paying attention to executive details and creating economic opportunities imbedded in a sound approach to fiscal governance.

When failure is obvious, it time for a change. It's been said before: 的nsanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

Michael M. McGreer writes on public policy. His recent book: No Harm, No Foul, Bioterrorism in the 21^st century is currently available on Amazon.