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Penny Press Nevada, USA Volume 14 Number 42 JUNE 22, 2017 THE PENNY PRESS,JUNE 22, 2017 PAGE 2 www.pennypressnv.com The Penny Press is published weekly by Penny Credits: Far West Radio LLC All Contents © Penny Press 2017 Publisher and Editor: Contributing Editors: Fred Weinberg Floyd Brown Al Thomas Letters to the Editor are encouraged. They should be Press emailed to: [email protected] No unsigned or Doug French Robert Ringer Logotype unverifiable letters will be printed. Pointedlymad John Getter Pat Choate licensed from: Ron Knecht Byron Bergeron 775-461-1515 eFax: 201-304-0355 Rich Gast Penny Press NEVADA USA 16 PAGES VOLUME 14 NUMBER 42 JUNE 22, 2017 Public Ought To See School District Labor Negotiations By DANIEL HONCHARIW systematically prioritizes the job trash” clause, it reads: And certainly, if an individual Special to the Penny Press security of its members over the In the event civil or criminal has truly gone through such a safety and security of students. proceedings are brought against a process and been cleared by a court, A recent epidemic of sexual- This shows up most clearly teacher and the teacher is cleared his personnel file should be cleared. misconduct revelations has the in the lack of public transparency of said charge, all written reports, However, that has not been Clark County School District within the collective bargaining comments or reprimands concerning the way CCSD administrators and scrambling to draft new policies. process — the process through actions which the courts found not union reps have been interpreting which the government and its to have occurred, shall be removed the article. organized workers negotiate for a from the teacher’s personnel file.” Rather, it has been interpreted Commentary new contract. (Emphasis added.) in such a way that the standard Behind closed doors, it’s all Technically, this standard is practice is to scrub all allegations too easy for the representatives actually very strict: It only allows of misconduct, regardless of how The new rules are intended of government and of government wiping of the files for teachers who frequent or credible, unless they to better govern communications unions to form a common front meet three very specific conditions are accompanied by a guilty verdict between district employees and against the public — whether it’s — teachers who have: — at which point the predator is students, especially with regards to the taxpaying public or, as in this 1) Been the subject allowed to quietly move to another social media and texting. case, the youth and families the of “civil or criminal school where new students can be While more explicit district district was established to serve. proceedings,” and victimized. standards in this area may be Take for example Article 12, 2) Have been “cleared Note that the Las Vegas helpful, alone this simply won’t Section 10 of the current collective of said charge[s],” Review-Journal’s “Broken Trust” be enough. What makes such bargaining agreement between 3) Which courts series revealed that at least two of misconduct possible in the first CCSD and the CCEA teacher union. have “found not to have the teachers arrested during just the place is that the teacher union Often dubbed the “pass the occurred.” 2016-17 school year “had a known Continued on page4 The Conservative Weekly Voice Of Nevada RON KNECHT PAGE 5 Penny Wisdom FRED WEINBERG PAGE 6 Inside: ROBERT RINGER PAGE 7 Someone gave me a bracelet DOUG FRENCH PAGE 9 My Father Taught Me that said, “she thought she could, so she did.” Well, NO EXTRA SECURITY PAGE 10 To Act Like Cosell tonight, we did! HEALTH SYSTEM NOT ALL BAD PAGE 11 —Karen Handel See Editorial Page 6 CHUCK MUTH PAGE 14 THE PENNY PRESS,JUNE 22, 2017 PAGE 4 Nevada Should Have No Open Meetings Exemptions Continued from page 3 history of inappropriate behavior, according to police records,” yet were statutes which expressly mandate that all collective bargaining be made permitted to teach anyway. public. This is powerful evidence that, for the safety of students and the Minnesota law, for example, explicitly defines all “negotiations, common welfare of the community, the provisions of collective bargaining mediation sessions, and hearings between public employees and public agreements need to be crafted publicly and transparently. employers or or their respective representatives” as public meetings. For years, critics of back-room dealings have called for transparency Although some union officials claim that sunlight on negotiations in collective bargaining. The latest CCSD scandals merely provide the would undermine the bargaining process, there’s no evidence, so far, to latest evidence that those calls are justified. support such claims. Current state law, however, exempts the bargaining process from In fact, the idea that increased transparency will somehow undermine Nevada’s Open Meetings Law. This means that all negotiations between public policy is completely illogical. Isn’t more information always better the teacher union and CCSD — including those that led to the adoption than less information for policy-making purposes? of Art. 12, Sec. 10 — remain hidden from CCSD parents as well as the So if CCSD wants to get serious about cracking down on delinquent taxpaying public. behavior within its tens of thousands of employees, it should start by Sunlight on union negotiations could have precluded this type of offering the public a full view of the bargaining process through which the clause — and its varying, contradictory interpretations — from ever being district’s disciplinary rules are drafted. adopted in the first place. Specifically, Nevada should remove the Open Meetings exemption Parents witnessing in real time what seems to have been an incoherent to collective bargaining, thereby mandating that such negotiations be union-district discussion would, most likely, have rebelled. performed in public. Already wrathful, given the failing educational system for which And to those unions who continue to resist transparency on baseless they must pay, parents are unlikely to react well to union efforts to grounds, parents should be asking one simple question: “What are you blindly prioritize the protection of its members from potentially frivolous hiding?” allegations over the safety of the community’s students. Daniel Honchariw is a policy researcher and analyst at the Nevada Policy And it’s all so needless: Several states where government unions enjoy Research Institute, a free-market think tank. powerful influence — Minnesota, Idaho, Texas, to name a few — have THE PENNY PRESS,JUNE 22, 2017 PAGE 5 Commentary: Ron Knecht & Geoffrey Lawrence Estonia began by eliminating American firms in total hold $2.6 and file. Second, taxpayers in Federal Taxes: taxes entirely on retained corporate trillion in offshore earnings, more similar financial circumstances earnings. Moldova and others than one-eighth of our economy. should receive similar treatment, Lower Corporate soon followed suit and Western Other companies, like Tyco and while those in different financial European nations responded by Fruit of the Loom, have relocated circumstances should receive lowering their own rates. their corporate headquarters to roughly proportional treatment. Rates, Use AMT The United States is the only other nations altogether in order to Third, tax policy should not remaining industrialized nation that benefit from better tax laws. distort behavior by making certain as a Lifeboat hasn’t lowered its corporate tax The United States needs to transactions subject to multiple rates during this wave of global reestablish itself as the preferred levels of taxation or especially As economists and public tax competition. So, it now has place to do business and to punitive taxation. Finally, the interest advocates, we’re very the highest statutory corporate tax destination for global investment tax burden should transparent and interested in the federal tax code rate in the developed world at 39.1 by dramatically lowering corporate visible. and the various ways in which percent, according to a recent report income tax rates. President Trump We certainly agree with Trump it creates, destroys or distorts from the Congressional Budget has suggested a top statutory rate of and others that the current tax code economic incentives. Office. 15 percent. That would be a huge is needlessly cumbersome in large The federal corporate income This punitive tax cost of doing step in the right direction. part because of the need to calculate tax has been a huge deterrent for business in the United States leads But we differ slightly with taxes under two completely companies to reinvest profits earned American firms to leave profits other reformers’ ideas we’ve different systems. However, if tax abroad back into America. In the earned by their foreign subsidiaries heard. In particular, the president reform were to meet all the stated early 1990s, democratizing nations offshore and reinvest them in foreign has suggested that repealing objectives listed above, the tax in Eastern Europe launched a round markets rather than investing at the Alternative Minimum Tax would look like the AMT, not the of global tax competition to attract home. Apple and General Electric (AMT) would substantially regular income tax. industry by slashing corporate each hold hundreds of billions reduce compliance burdens faced That’s why we see the AMT income tax rates. of dollars in earnings offshore. by American businesses and not as a problem to be eliminated, households. but as a likely vehicle for federal Congress originally created tax reform. Comprehensive tax a minimum tax in 1969 after reform is very difficult because Tips Of Our Cap then-Treasury Secretary Joseph big and small businesses and other Barr showed 155 high-income interested parties all want to include households paid no federal different, sometimes incompatible, and income tax because they were elements. able to maximize deductions and But the AMT is a flat, low-rate exemptions.