Back in 1995, Nevada’s Department of Transportation (DOT) stopped performing “Benefit-Cost” analysis on its proposed projects because traffic became so bad in Las Vegas that powerful, senior government officials in Reno and Carson City became concerned all traffic projects would be in Las Vegas forever more.
However, after more than a decade of substituting subjective political […]

Back in 2000, state government set up a “Blue Ribbon Commission” that determined Nevada’s tax structure was unstable. Subsequent events proved the Commission’s conclusions incorrect, but not before its work was twisted around to support the largest percentage tax-and-spend hike in Nevada’s history.
Now, a second “Blue-Ribbon Commission” is looking at our highway funding issues.
There […]

I hear it’s been more than a decade since the Nevada Department of Transportation stopped doing cost-benefit analysis on projects. Most states use this technique to prioritize its projects, but Nevada suspended the practice. I hope to find out why when I meet with DOT officials later this week.
In the meantime, here is the Federal […]

The last time Governor Guinn appointed a “Blue-Ribbon Commission” it pronounced Nevada’s tax system “structurally deficient,” leading to the largest per-capita expansion of state taxing and spending in the history of Nevada. The action moved Nevada from below-average per-person taxation to above average. And, in retrospect, we now know that the Blue-Ribbon Commission was… well, […]