In case you missed it…
Constitutional issues:
State Senator Heidi Gansert is pushing back against NPRI’s lawsuit, which asserts she is in violation of the Nevada Constitution by occupying government positions in the legislature and the executive branch simultaneously. “In her motion to dismiss [the NPRI lawsuit], Senator Gansert essentially (and unilaterally) rewrites the relevant section of the Nevada constitution, then alleges her rewrite warrants dismissal of the suit,” commented NPRI’s Center for Justice and Constitutional Litigation Director Joseph Becker. (Read more)
Government waste and corruption:
Large school districts — like most large monopolies — tend to be full of corruption and abuse. Clark County School District is no different. From deliberately hiding large scale projects from trustees, to misleading trustees about the cost of insurance, the Nevada Journal has highlighted a handful of examples. And they’re not isolated incidents. In fact, such incidents are merely indicators of a much larger culture of waste and abuse within the District. (Read more)
Minimum wage:
Researchers at Harvard Business School recently published a study looking into the effects minimum-wage hikes have on one of the industries most susceptible to such increases: the food service industry. The study, which focused on the Bay Area, found that wage increases triggered restaurant closures in a big way. Unsurprisingly, new restaurants and those with lower-priced menus were especially hard hit by the area’s recent wage hikes. Likely, this is due to the fact that higher quality restaurants have more flexibility to raise prices and absorb costs. Also noted in the study is the fact that higher minimum wages tend to deter entrepreneurial restaurateurs from opening new locations. (Read more)
Education:
Despite spending more than $23,000 per student, New York City kids are not receiving the kind of education they should. In grades three to eight, only 36 percent of kids in New York City Department of Education schools are earning a passing score in math. In English, the pass rate was just 38 percent. Many inner city schools are even worse. And yet, rather than change the way education is delivered, or open the system up to more educational options, Mayor Bill De Blasio has another plan: government funded pre-pre-K. The program would be aimed at getting children as young as 3 years old enrolled in an already failing government education system. (Read more)
Fiscal and economy:
The world is changing. Within human society, the economy that gives birth to mankind’s jobs and occupations, has transformed time and time again, from agricultural to industrial to whatever we are experiencing now. Sometimes sociologists call our current era a “postindustrial economy,” which, as Senator Ben Sasse writes in the Wall Street Journal, is basically “another way of saying ‘we don’t have anything to call it.’” These kinds of changes are disruptive, and require innovation and entrepreneurship to overcome. The “team sport” mentality of bitter modern politics, however, is making this most recent economic (and social) transformation even more difficult than normal. (Read more)