Read a book
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
Read a book
With the legislative session behind us, we political and news junkies are feeling a bit of a void in our lives. (And if you think like I do, you’re probably also feeling a little nauseous over the results.)
But fear not, for I have the perfect solution: Find a good book. Books are engaging, they’re easily portable and, unlike the stuff you peruse online, the government hasn’t yet figured out how to spy on you while you read them … I don’t think.
Now, my suggestion would be that you pick up something on the lighter side — a good action thriller, perhaps — and take a break from the political and policy debates that so often consume your mind. But if you find yourself still needing that political/policy fix, there’s no shortage of superb choices for you to turn to this summer.
With that, here are my top five summer-reading recommendations for bookworms of a conservative/libertarian persuasion.
The Law by Frédéric Bastiat. Short, sweet and easy to digest, The Law makes a concise yet powerful case for limited government and individual liberty. If you know a burgeoning conservative who’s ready to start grounding his political instincts in a deeper and more coherent philosophical argument, this is the place to point him. And it’s also available for free online. Click here to read The Law.
The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek. One of the greatest free-market economic thinkers in history, Hayek makes a convincing argument that big and intrusive government, particularly in economic affairs, leads inevitably to tyranny. He also dismantles the myth that socialism and fascism exist at opposite ends of the political spectrum, arguing instead that because of their shared roots in collectivism, they are, in reality, only slightly different variants of state control over the actions of individuals.
The Myth of the Robber Barons by Burton W. Folsom. Remember those stories you used to hear in grade school about the greedy capitalists who got rich at the expense of everyone else? Turns out the truth looks a lot different. Folsom offers a fresh look at the men who built the American business world, and distinguishes the rent seekers (who really are deserving of scorn) from the genuine market entrepreneurs (who ought instead to be appreciated, lauded and emulated).
The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk. Credited by many as the book that kick-started the modern conservative movement in America, this Kirk classic serves as not only a brilliant articulation of conservative principles, but also an illuminating exploration of the giants of intellectual conservatism’s history, most notably Edmund Burke.
The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure by John A. Allison. All right, this one may be a little self-serving, since the author will be the keynote speaker at NPRI’s Spring Celebration in Reno next Wednesday. (Not registered yet? It’s not too late!) But hey, there’s a reason we chose him. Allison offers an incisive analysis of the real reasons behind America’s financial woes and, more importantly, shows how a return to sound, free-market principles is the remedy we need.
It goes without saying that this list overlooks a whole lot of very worthy selections. And you no doubt have your own favorite to recommend. So here’s what I’d like you to do: Email me with the one book you think no right-leaning reader can do without, and I’ll share the most popular selections next week.
As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
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Read moreThe not-so-special session
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
The not-so-special session
It had barely begun, and already the 27th Special Session of the Nevada Legislature was over. And just like the regular session that had unfolded over the previous 120 days, this week’s brief special session provided no reason to believe Nevada’s woes are going away anytime soon.
The most notable outcome of the special session was legislative authorization for a constitutionally dubious sales-tax increase in Clark County, which will take effect if and when the county commission passes it, with the additional revenues targeted for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s coffers.
The main takeaways — from your wallet — of the regular session? The extension of a series of “temporary” taxes that were supposed to expire in 2011 (and had already been extended once); legislative authorization for sales- and property-tax increases in Washoe County to fund school construction; the passing of an energy plan that will increase your power bill; and, overall, about a $300 million increase in general-fund spending for the next biennium.
Just as significant as what did happen is what did not. There were no meaningful reforms to our broken education system. Liberals killed three such reform efforts — proposals for a tax-credit scholarship program, a parent-trigger law and funding for the successful Teach for America program.
Nor was any legislation passed that would reform PERS or address the fiscal and economic problems stemming from Nevada’s prevailing-wage, construction-defect or minimum-wage laws. And no serious effort was made to remove the many regulatory barriers to job creation in Nevada.
In other words, there were things that could have been done that would have made a real difference for struggling Nevadans, but weren’t. What was done will not.
Does anyone think that raising sales and property taxes will help put more Nevadans back to work? Or that increasing spending on the same education system that has been failing for decades (even as spending has increased dramatically during that time) will do anything to improve student achievement?
Liberal ideas have failed Nevada and are continuing to harm students, taxpayers and business owners.
Yet those politicians who bill themselves as fiscal conservatives were, for the most part, content to allow the debate to be controlled by those who advocate for higher taxes and more government spending. Many supported raising taxes without insisting on the passage of proven, free-market reforms. A great case in point was Gov. Brian Sandoval’s decision to put the Clark County sales-tax hike on the special-session agenda, while leaving his tax-credit scholarship plan — an idea the governor himself had earlier claimed as a top priority — off.
The bottom line? The 2013 regular and special legislative sessions, on the issues of greatest importance to Nevadans, essentially upheld the status quo. And the status quo isn’t good enough.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
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About that Buffett deal
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
About that Buffett deal
I like entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurs are, more than anything, what make our economy work. They build businesses, create jobs and can accumulate wealth for themselves by improving the lives of countless people they’ll never even meet.
But entrepreneurship requires more than just a businessman or woman investing in a company. True entrepreneurship only exists when businesses compete for customers. Consumers then have the power to choose the winners and losers in the market place. That system is what we call free-market capitalism.
Unfortunately, that system, which is responsible for more prosperity than anything else ever conceived by mankind, often gets perverted. And what may look like free-market capitalism on its face is really something much different — and often destructive.
Enter Warren Buffett.
As the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports, the Buffett-owned MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. has announced its plan to purchase NV Energy, the Nevada utility company, in a deal worth $10 billion. The move, quite predictably, is being hailed as a huge boost to the Silver State business climate.
Few business leaders are as admired as Buffett, and his decision to invest here puts Nevada’s corporate world on the map, said Robert Lind, managing partner of local investment brokerage Berkshire Bridge Capital, which is unrelated to Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate.
“Anytime we get someone like Warren Buffett to acquire a Nevada company and not get rid of management, it raises the level of perceived sophistication that there are well-managed companies here,” Lind said. “This will shine a flashlight on Nevada for sure.”
Let’s consider for a moment that “decision to invest” in Nevada. In a free-market system, an investment entails both an opportunity to profit and a risk of loss. Warren Buffett has made many such investments over the course of his business career, and as his net worth suggests, he’s pretty skilled at differentiating the good investments from the bad ones.
But the NV Energy deal required no such talent. That’s because NV Energy is a government-protected monopoly, and as such is legally insulated from competition and enjoys a guaranteed customer base. If it is unable to satisfy those customers, or if it increases rates beyond what some would choose to pay, it’s at no risk of losing business, because the government has made competing with it illegal.
In other words, its risk of failure has been outlawed. That’s not how a free market works, and this deal is anything but an “investment” in the free market.
To be clear, this problem isn’t Warren Buffett’s fault. He’s not responsible for NV Energy’s monopoly status, and I’m not going to begrudge him for recognizing a no-risk, all-reward opportunity and pouncing on it. And if his association with Nevada ends up improving the state’s image, then that’s great.
But before we all start reacting to this news by behaving like teenyboppers at a Justin Bieber concert — Kelvin Atkinson, I’m looking at you — will we at least think this through?
Buffett wouldn’t have made this deal if he didn’t think he could make money off of it. Money comes to utility companies from the rates that consumers pay. And if you’re a government-protected monopoly, with profits guaranteed as a percentage of your costs, the way to make more money is to increase production costs.
Literally, utilities receive higher earnings by becoming less efficient — such as by constructing power plants that aren’t even needed. It’s true that this requires regulatory or legislative approval, but NV Energy has proven itself very adept when it comes to lobbying lawmakers to give the firm what it wants.
Indeed, the latest effort — in the form of Senate Bill 123 — is unfolding even as we speak. The bill allows NV Energy to stop using power plants that still have years of life on them just so the company has an excuse to build new ones. Similar legislation passed in Colorado is expected to increase electric rates there by 11 to 50 percent.
Does anyone think Warren Buffett will have more trouble than previous ownership in getting Nevada’s politicians to bend to his will? And does anyone think he’ll be less inclined to try?
When Buffett’s profits go up, we’ll all pay for them with higher rates. And unlike in a free market, we’ll have nowhere else to go.
If this deal really does, as Robert Lind predicts, “shine a flashlight on Nevada,” let’s hope people aren’t so starry-eyed that they miss what’s most important to see: the fundamental flaws in Nevada’s approach to energy policy.
Until next time,
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
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Mikayla's story
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
Mikayla's story
Will spending more increase student achievement in Nevada?
That’s the working assumption of many Nevada legislators. For instance, after Senate Majority Leader Mo Denis dropped his attempt to raise Nevada’s job-killing payroll tax on Tuesday, Senate Democrats took to the floor to complain that Nevada doesn’t spend enough on education and hence legislators are “kicking the can down the road again.”
Now it’s easy to refute the idea that spending more will increase student achievement using numbers, and NPRI’s done so many times.
And while those numbers are essential, today I’d like to share a story with you from a mother named Patricia about her daughter, Mikayla. Her story demonstrates that changing who spends Nevada’s education dollars, instead of changing how much we spend, is the key to improving student achievement.
Patricia lives in Indiana, which began a Choice Scholarship Program in 2011. Here’s her family’s story in her own words:
The Choice Scholarship Program has affected my daughter, Mikayla, positively in every aspect of her life.
Have you heard the phrase, “What a difference a day makes?” I’m modifying that to, “What a difference the Choice Scholarship Program makes!”
Mikayla is in seventh grade this year at Trinity Lutheran School in Hobart. She has struggled both academically and behaviorally since about the fourth grade. Before the start of her sixth grade year, I checked out Trinity because I knew she (we) needed a different atmosphere. However, although I was very interested, the cost of tuition prevented me from even considering sending her there since my husband has been unemployed for two and a half years. So, I resigned and braced myself for her first year in middle school.
Only by the grace of God did we make it through last year. For her last term in sixth grade she was barely getting by academically. In contrast, on her October mid-term grades report from Trinity Lutheran, she received an A+, two As, one B+ and four Bs! When Mikayla brought home her grades, I could not stop looking at them. We even invited my sister over for the unveiling of her report card.
Not only has the voucher program affected her grades, but her whole attitude. Last year, Mikayla dreaded going to school. Now, she can’t wait to go to school; she even comments on the weekend that she wishes it were a school day.
Last year, Mikayla was bullied and didn’t want to be involved in any extracurricular school activities. This year, she jumped right in and played on the soccer team and is in the hand bell choir.
Our children are our future. How could anyone oppose changing the life of a child, a family and our world? Thank you to all who supported this program from the bottom of my heart!
Patricia Siroky
How many thousands of Mikaylas are there in Nevada’s public school system? Spending more won’t help them. Changing who spends the money will.
Have a great Memorial Day and thank you to our veterans and their families. We wouldn’t be here without your sacrifices.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
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Bad government!
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
Bad government!
Questions surrounding the spate of scandals now enveloping the White House have largely focused on what they tell us about the nature of the Obama administration. That is, is the administration guilty of mere incompetence or out-and-out corruption?
It’s a fine and appropriate question to ask. But to focus on it and it alone runs the risk of missing the most important lesson from these episodes.
In recent days, I’ve heard several observers say that the confluence of these scandals calls to mind the famous words of Lord Acton regarding the corrupting influence of power. Agreed. But that maxim, sage as it is, is a tad too abstract in this case.
Allow me instead to offer a recent comment from David Axelrod, President Obama’s longtime political advisor, who unwittingly (I assume) nailed the problem right on its head. Asked in particular about the IRS scandal — in which the nation’s tax-collecting agency brought enhanced scrutiny and, in some cases, outright harassment to bear upon conservative applicants for non-profit organizational status — Axelrod said this: “Part of being president is, there’s so much underneath you that you can’t know, because the government’s so vast.”
Well … yeah.
It was a pretty amazing moment, really. In one simple sentence, Axelrod managed to offer both a sincere defense of the president, and an incisive indictment of the ideology the president works to advance.
Think about it. Even under the most generous explanation for these scandals, what we have here is the chief executive of the federal government, as well as other top officials, having absolutely no idea what was going on throughout the government they run. The White House, the IRS, the DOJ — they claim everyone was utterly clueless as to what everyone else was doing. And again, that’s their best spin on these scandals.
But let’s be perfectly clear: The issue here runs much deeper than the competence level of a single presidential administration. What we’ve been treated to in the past few days is a compelling case — made by Axelrod in word and by the Obama administration in deed — for limited government. After all, since these kinds of abuses are simply natural outgrowths of having such a “vast” government, the only rational response is to make sure that government shrinks. The alternative — to simply live with the abuse — is unacceptable.
That is the real lesson here. And while I don’t expect Obama or Axelrod to learn it, I’m growing concerned that some who should, won’t.
As many others have already pointed out, one of the more frightening elements of the IRS scandal is the considerable set of new powers the agency is poised to receive under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Under Obamacare, the IRS, as the health-care law’s enforcement agency, will be even more involved in citizens’ lives than it is already — and in some of the most intimate and personal parts.
Among those concerned about this is Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming. “These are the folks that are supposed to enforce the health care law,” the senator remarked at a press conference. “I can’t imagine the American people are going to be delighted with the misuse of power we’ve seen from the IRS and wanting to entrust them with their health care.”
Nor should they be. But the takeaway from this should not just be that the IRS is unfit to enforce PPACA, true as that may be. It’s that the government is unfit to be involved in health care — or any of the other myriad facets of our lives in which it has become inappropriately entrenched. The former line of thinking suggests we can cure the problem simply by reassigning the IRS’ Obamacare responsibilities to another federal agency. But if the IRS isn’t above abusing its power for partisan political purposes, why on Earth should we assume better of any other group of Washington bureaucrats?
Big government leads, naturally and necessarily, to abusive government.
Let’s hope the events of the past few days will serve to remind an all-too-complacent citizenry of that fact.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
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A video for you
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
A video for you
As I mentioned a few weeks back, I’ve been asked to participate in a new project for Channel 3 in Las Vegas, for which I’ll be providing a weekly commentary during evening newscasts. We’re about three weeks in, and I’ve enjoyed both the opportunity to work with the talented team at Channel 3 as well as the chance to share NPRI’s ideas with a new audience.
This week, I wanted to share with you my latest commentary, which aired on Monday. The topic was taxes, and in my commentary I explain how the current efforts of lawmakers to raise taxes are based on an entirely false premise — that Nevada doesn’t spend enough on its public education system.
The video is below, and as always, I welcome your feedback. And be sure to follow NPRI on Twitter if you’d like to know in advance when my commentaries will air.
(Click the image or click here to watch)
Thanks for reading — and watching — and have a great weekend.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
Remember, if you'd like to receive the latest from NPRI, sign-up for our emails here.
It never ends
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
It never ends
Have you ever heard — or, worse, had your children sing to you — “The Song that Never Ends”?
For those who aren’t familiar with the lyrics, it goes:
This is the song that never ends.
It just goes on and on my friends.
Some people started singing it not knowing what it was,
And they'll continue singing it forever just because
It is the song that never ends...
And the song continues until you go crazy or bribe your kids to just stop singing it!
I was reminded of that song this week, when I was reading a Las Vegas Sun story about how the ACLU of Nevada is considering suing the state for not spending enough on education.
As the Sun notes, liberals’ attempts to intimidate by threatening lawsuits is a tactic that never ends:
The threat of a lawsuit over education inadequacy isn't new, with advocates bringing up the threat about every two years and whole legal papers exploring the issue.
Here’s the 30,000-foot view of the potential lawsuit’s argument:
- Nevada’s constitution says the “legislature shall encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual ... improvements.”
- Nevada’s constitution says the “legislature shall provide for a uniform system of common schools.”
- Nevada’s constitution says the legislature shall fund K-12 education before any other part of the budget.
- Nevada’s education system is doing poorly.
- Therefore, Nevada’s courts should make the legislature spend more on education.
There are a lot of things wrong with this argument, but let’s focus on two.
First, we’ve been trying to solve Nevada’s education problems by spending more for 50 years.
Even after adjusting for inflation, Nevada has nearly tripled per-pupil spending in the last 50 years. Spending more hasn’t worked, and spending more in the future will only further entrench the status quo. That’s because Nevada’s onerous collective bargaining law, NRS 288, gives unions more power over increases in education spending than elected officials have. NPRI has proposed a lot of solutions to Nevada’s education problems, but none involve spending more — because spending isn’t the problem.
The second problem is more fundamental and even more important. This type of lawsuit, if successful, would further weaken our very system of government. Power in our government is constitutionally divided between three branches, each with distinct and separate types of authority. These distinct powers allow each branch to check and balance the dominance of the others.
This is why the “separation of powers” principle is so important. If one person serves in two branches of government, it produces a disproportionate concentration of power — sabotaging the check that the branches should provide upon each other.
One person serving in two branches of government is problematic enough, but for one branch to assume the duties of another branch would be even more destructive. That’s what would happen if such a case were successful.
A fundamental role of the legislative branch is to spend taxpayer money. That’s a job for duly elected lawmakers, not Nevada judges — who already have more than enough to do.
Were a Nevada court to decide that it can determine how much state taxpayers should spend on education, it would demonstrate its own disdain for the constitution it is sworn to protect.
And that would be a huge problem. As James Madison observed, "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." (Emphasis added.)
Certainly, governmental tyranny is a matter of degree. But the record, throughout history and all around the world still today, is clear: Exceptions to the separation-of-powers principle diminish a fundamental structural protection of our liberties.
In some ways, America and Nevada are victims of our founders’ success. So excellent a job was done establishing a form of government structured to preserve liberty and limit governmental oppression, that many citizens have forgotten just how fragile freedom is — and how vigorously we must fight to defend it from even the smallest encroachments.
So while liberals will likely never end their cries to “spend more,” we also have a job that never ends: reminding our fellow citizens about the important principles at stake in our current public policy debates.
Take care,
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
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Wrong way Republicans
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
Wrong way Republicans
Do you remember Jim Marshall?
No, I’m not talking about the former congressman from Georgia. I’m talking about the other Jim Marshall, the former professional football player who was a defensive end for the Minnesota Vikings in the 1960s and ’70s.
Marshall had a very solid career, setting multiple records and earning a couple of Pro Bowl appearances. But what he’s most remembered for is something he probably wishes we’d all forget: In one of the most embarrassing blunders in sports history, Marshall, playing in a game in 1964, recovered a fumble and ran 66 yards — into the wrong end zone.
Now, there are all kinds of mistakes an athlete can make (and as a former amateur athlete myself, I’ve made most of them). But nothing is as bad as scoring for the wrong team.
I thought of Jim Marshall this week while reading the latest big news out of Carson City. A half-dozen Senate Republicans have announced what they’re calling the “Education Priority Initiative,” which would slap the mining industry with a $600 million tax hike over a two-year span and funnel the money into Nevada’s broken education system.
These Republicans, of course, campaigned for office as champions of limited government and responsible fiscal policy. To taxpayers, they essentially said: We’re on your team.
Yet here they are, like Jim Marshall, running in the wrong direction.
Of course, here in Nevada, there’s nothing new about self-proclaimed fiscal conservatives advocating for liberal policies. But it’s especially troubling to see it today. Our state’s economy is in a highly precarious position, and the unity of Republicans and Democrats in calling for higher taxes will only make matters worse.
The six Republicans behind this tax increase would likely protest that no such unity exists, since the tax increase on mining has been proposed as an alternative to a new margin tax, which is being pushed by the Nevada State Education Association and is supported by some legislative Democrats. Said Republican Senator and tax-increase proponent Scott Hammond: “The margins tax is a job-destroying tax that will force businesses to close and drive jobs out of Nevada, and it fails to ensure that more revenue actually goes to the classroom. On the other hand, the Education Priority Initiative will bring more equity to the current tax structure.”
Don’t fall for it. The differences between the two proposals, pace Sen. Hammond and his allies, are far less significant than their most fundamental similarity. That similarity is the false and dangerous premise on which they both rest: that Nevada doesn’t spend enough on education.
As NPRI’s Geoff Lawrence pointed out on Wednesday, Nevada over the past 50 years has nearly tripled education spending on a per-pupil, inflation-adjusted basis, yet student achievement remains unacceptably poor.
So both the margin-tax and mining-tax proposals would take more money out of our already fragile private economy and waste it — by throwing it at a problem that 50 years of evidence have proven can’t be solved with more money.
And it’s actually worse than that. By echoing the union-peddled hogwash that increased spending is the key to educational improvement, these senators are not only hampering Nevada’s economic recovery — they’re also undermining efforts to implement the kinds of structural reforms that would actually help students. And as their campaign-season rhetoric from not too long ago suggests, they know it.
As Jim Marshall reminded us, we’re all capable of folly. But at least Marshall’s wrong turn was accidental.
Until next time,
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
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Progress on school choice
Every week, NPRI President Andy Matthews writes a column for NPRI's week-in-review email. If you are not getting our emails, which contain our latest commentaries and news stories, you can sign up here to receive them.
Progress on school choice
If you’ve been keeping up with NPRI’s E-Bulletins, you know that we’ve been very active during the current legislative session. In particular, Geoff Lawrence, the Institute’s deputy policy director, has been in Carson City full-time since February, sharing ideas with lawmakers, testifying on numerous bills and keeping an eye on legislative developments.
Geoff wrote a very informative piece that we published yesterday, titled “The good, the bad and the ugly: Part I.” (I haven’t confirmed this, but I’d like to think the title was inspired by my reference to Clint Eastwood in last Friday’s Week in Review).
In any event, Geoff’s commentary takes a look at some of the bills that failed to survive the deadline for receiving committee approval and have thus been relegated to the ash heap of history, unless resurrected by legislative leadership.
Among the bills that did survive, however, is one that I’ve been watching closely: Senate Bill 445. This bill, which is being pushed by Gov. Brian Sandoval, would provide tax credits to businesses that fund scholarships for students to attend a school of their own choice.
We at NPRI published a study a few years ago that detailed the many benefits that a tax-credit scholarship plan would entail, and it’s very encouraging to see the governor push this powerful idea. Given the decades-long failure of the state’s monolithic public-education system, any effort to expand school choice is not only welcome, but long overdue.
And in particular, the tax-credit scholarship idea is a true win-win: If enacted, the governor’s plan would expand educational options for students (which, the research incontrovertibly shows, would lead to higher achievement) while also generating significant cost-savings to the state. For the sake of Nevada’s students, let’s hope the governor fights spiritedly for this idea over the coming weeks.
In other news, I wanted to let you know about a new development here at NPRI that has us very excited. I’ve been invited to deliver a weekly commentary for Channel 3 in Las Vegas, which will air beginning next week, and I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to share NPRI’s ideas with such a broad audience.
About a half-dozen other commentators will be participating as well, including former gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid, so the series will feature a lot of different topics and viewpoints. My commentaries will air on a different day each week (but always during the 6 p.m. news broadcast), so if you’re interested in watching them, be sure to follow us on Twitter for updates on the schedule.
Finally, I wanted to extend my appreciation to all of you who responded to last week’s request for examples of pop-culture conservatism. There were a lot of quality suggestions, and the most popular was a great one from the music category: the Eagles song “Get Over It.”
Again, thanks to those of you who wrote in — and to all of you, thanks for reading, and have a wonderful weekend.
Andy Matthews
NPRI President
Remember, if you'd like to receive the latest from NPRI, sign-up for our emails here.
Nation's biggest movie theater cuts hours to avoid Obamacare mandate
Surprised? Me neither. More unintended consequences that were entirely too predictable.
The nation's largest movie theater chain has cut the hours of thousands of employees, saying in a company memo that ObamaCare requirements are to blame.
Regal Entertainment Group, which operates more than 500 theaters in 38 states, last month rolled back shifts for non-salaried workers to 30 hours per week, putting them under the threshold at which employers are required to provide health insurance. The Nashville-based company said in a letter to managers that the move was a direct result of ObamaCare.
“In addition, some managers have requested guidance on what they should tell those employees negatively impacted and, at your discretion, we suggest the following,” read the memo obtained by FoxNews.com. “To comply with the Affordable Care Act, Regal had to increase our health care budget to cover those newly deemed eligible based on the law's definition of a full-time employee.”
“To manage this budget, all other employees will be scheduled in accord with business needs and in a manner that will not negatively impact our health care budget,” the message continues.
Government mandates can't make society richer, but they can make and are making us much poorer. And guess who gets hurt the most? Poor folks like these Regal employees, who are now only able to only work 30 hours a week.