“With all due respect to my colleagues who voted “no”, no one is fooled by the “vote no, hope yes” culture. The domestic spending portion of the Omnibus is a classic example of that because no one will be championing that they voted against life, against saving border wall money, and against veterans’ programs. Further, livestock producers and the agriculture industry were rescued from burdensome Green New Deal requirements Democrats had insisted on pursing. While there is no such thing as perfect, we think this combination of conservative provisions allows us to continue the fight in the face of the dysfunction of the majority in the House, Senate, and White House.
 
“In this Omnibus package, there are some fundamentally-American results achieved by those of us who didn’t give up the fight, and as a result, produced several policy home runs despite being in the minority. Some of these provisions include:

• An increase of $32.5 billion in funding for the Department of Defense (DOD), including a 2.7% pay raise for our troops;
• An increase of $400 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and an increase of $800 million for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), in part to address the crisis at our Southern border;
• A $211 million increase to Wildland Fire Management for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service;
• Allowing for continued domestic energy and mineral development by preventing sage grouse from being listed in the Endangered Species Act (ESA);
• Exempting farmers and ranchers from greenhouse gas permitting and reporting requirements;
• A prohibition on closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and transferring detainees; and
• A prohibition on the use of funds from being used to implement the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, which urges greater record-keeping of lawful firearm owners, moving closer to the left’s long-sought goal of a national firearm ownership registry.

 
“Another successful aspect of this bill is that several Democrat poison pill provisions were eliminated through the conference process between the House and Senate. While it is part of the “woke” agenda of the majority party to remove Hyde Amendment protections, this long-standing amendment was preserved in the Omnibus package, preventing taxpayer dollars from being used to fund abortions. Moreover, anti-energy provisions, which would dramatically further reduce domestic mineral production, and a provision demanded by progressives to cancel $1.9 billion in border wall funding, further fueling the border crisis, were also eliminated.
 
“And because multi-tasking is important, I was also glad to see the inclusion of several Nevada-specific wins that I directly advocated for over the fiscal year:

• All 10 submitted Community Project Funding designations, including funding to purchase emergency responder communications equipment for the cities of Sparks and West Wendover, upgrades to municipal water plants and sewer systems, and pedestrian improvements in Carson City, just to name a few;
• The largest ever appropriations package for Lake Tahoe, including $7 million specifically to improve waterline infrastructure on Highway 50 for wildfire response capabilities;
• Funding to support Nevada-based companies’ technology production, such as the Sierra Nevada Corporation and Rocky Research;
• Funding for the Desert Research Institute (DRI) to carry out studies preventing urban flood damage, hydrological and climate forecasting, and improved data sharing capabilities; and
• Funding to support research activities to improve geothermal and solar efficiency production, both of which have a strong presence in Nevada’s energy grid.

 
“As I’ve said repeatedly, the dysfunction of the majority party in Congress is off the charts. Although long overdue in its passage, now that Fiscal Year 2022 deck has been cleared with this vote, I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on the Appropriations Committee to secure funding for many more Nevada priorities again in Fiscal Year 2023, all while pushing back against provisions that serve a far-left, political agenda.”

​With Nevada’s Congressional delegates facing votes on President Joe Biden’s proposed income tax increases, questions of wealth and income distribution, tax fairness, economic growth and economic mobility have become central in public debate.
This column focuses on literature and empirical studies on economic mobility, showing there is still substantial economic mobility from generation to generation and within almost all individuals’ lives.  It is not true, as so often claimed, that the rich reap all the gains from economic growth and the poor get left in the mud.
Three recent columns posted on the web site of the Nevada Policy Research Institute (NPRI; NevadaPolicy.org) address tax fairness and income and wealth distribution in the U.S.  They show inequality has not increased over recent decades and American income taxes have become ever more progressive in this century, including with the 2017 Trump tax reforms.
Together with a forthcoming column on the impacts of income tax increases on economic growth and a final synthesis of the five columns, these articles provide a sound economic and policy basis for deciding on the proposed tax increases.  In short, America will build back better by rejecting them.
Daniel J. Mitchell is an economist specializing in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform and the burden of government spending.  November 26, 2018, he summarized the mobility literature in “Income Mobility Data Show America Still Very Much the Land of Opportunity,” published by the Foundation for Economic Education.
He begins, “I generally don’t write much about the distribution of income …, largely because that feeds the false notion that the economy is a fixed pie and that politicians should have the power to re-slice it if they think incomes aren’t sufficiently equal.  I think growth is far more important, especially for poor people …”
Economist Robert J. Samuelson wrote “The myth of stagnant incomes” in the Washington Post November 18, 2018.  He cited research by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that he called “arguably the most comprehensive tabulation of Americans’ incomes.”  It showed, “most Americans had experienced clear-cut income gains since the early 1980s.”
He noted the CBO study showed the lowest- and highest-income fifths of Americans enjoyed real income gains of about 80 percent in 1979-2015.  The other three-fifths experienced 50 percent income gains.  These gains, especially for the poor, occurred after the turn of the century, as well as before it.  The CBO data include after-tax incomes, government transfer payments (such as Medicare, food stamps, etc.), and employer-paid health insurance, as is correct.
An October 23, 2017 Economic Letter from the Federal Reserve Board of San Francisco, “Missing the Growth from Creative Destruction,” explains a systemic problem in most inequality studies also noted in two of the three papers posted at NPRI.  Namely, they rely on “cross-section,” not “panel” data.  Thus, they compare the experiences of different groups of people at the beginning and end years, instead of the actual differences for a single group of real people over the period.
Even studies by famed economist Raj Chetty are subject to this weakness.  When this methodological error is corrected, income and wealth disparities and alleged trends of increases in disparities over time disappear.
In the October 23, 2018 paper “Do the Rich Get All the Gains from Economic Growth?” Professor Russ Roberts makes the same point about panel studies reflecting the actual experience of real people versus disparate groups at different times.
Data from Professor Mark Rank in an April 18, 2014 New York Times column showed 12 percent of people found themselves in the top income one percent at least once in 35 years.  Likewise, 39 percent in at least one year in the top five percent; 56 percent in the top ten percent at least one year; and 73 percent in the top 20 percent at least one year.
U.S. economic mobility is great and America is indeed the land of opportunity.
Ron Knecht is a Senior Fellow at NPRI. Email RonKnecht@aol.com.

​President Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats, claiming concern about economic inequality in America, want to raise taxes greatly on the wealthy.  To understand key issues with their proposals, let’s first review the facts and trends around income inequality.
The major source for inequality claims was Capital in the Twenty-first Century, a 2014 tome by Thomas Piketty.  Although he subsequently walked back some of his major claims from that book and some data on which he relied, he and his collaborators have published papers since then trying to prove inequality has increased disturbingly in recent decades.
Fortunately, economists John Cochrane and Scott Lincicome have summarized recent research on the subject by a number of economists, and it debunks those claims.  They cite four main issues with the analyses by the inequality advocates.
First, their data omit significant kinds of income and erroneously include some non-income such as unrealized capital gains.  Second, they use pre-tax income and overlook income transfers (government payments and subsidies).  Third, they focus on family incomes, although family sizes have changed over time, meaning incomes should be computed on an individual basis.  Finally, they overlook benefits such as employer-provided insurance that have grown over time.
Correcting for these problems yields a very different picture than the one tax-hikers claim.  For example, Piketty and Co. claim the incomes, including capital gains, of America’s wealthiest one percent were roughly constant just below ten percent of the total from 1960 to the mid-1980s and then doubled to the present day.
Deducting unrealized capital gains, and adjusting for taxes and transfers, Gerald Auten and David Splinter find the incomes of the richest one percent declined in 1960-1990.  Then they rose until 2008, before settling back today to the roughly nine percent level of 60 years ago.  So much for claims the economic gains of recent decades were captured by FDR’s “malefactors of great wealth”.
They also show that post-tax/transfer upper and middle incomes have been roughly constant, with the lowest incomes rising.  And the highest incomes are much lower on a post-tax/transfer basis, with middle incomes slightly higher and the lowest incomes significantly higher.
Reinforcing these measures, estimates by Phil Gramm and John Early of overall income equality in the half-century 1967-2017 were roughly constant when measured post-tax/transfer.  A group of academic economists found essentially similar results for 1959-2016.  And Scott Winship found the only significant increase in inequality since 1947 was in the 1980s.
Lincicome summarizes: “In short, American income inequality basically disappears when you consider government policies and the actual financial resources (post-tax/transfer) available to the poor and middle class, instead of just the top line of their paychecks. … To argue we need more government interventions to fix an “income inequality” that exists only in the absence of current government interventions is misleading (at best).”
Per capita transfer payments doubled in real terms in 1974-2018, significantly dropping labor-force participation among the poorest.  They’ll increase further under the Democrats’ proposed legislation.
Lincicome adds, “Definitional problems also pervade the debate about the supposedly declining share of national income going to workers (the ‘labor share’) versus the owners of capital (the ‘capital share’) – another common target of the populist right and left.”
Erika York explains that adjusting for taxes and replacement of worn-down assets (depreciation) results in a much different picture of historical trends in net capital and labor income earned by people in the U.S.  The labor share, almost 70 percent, has been rising slightly since 1929, while the capital share, slightly above 30 percent, has been declining, according to data from Benjamin Bridgman and Matthew Rognile.
Donald Schneider, using Rognile’s latest data, finds no decoupling of pay and productivity since 1948 – a trend often claimed to show that too powerful capital is suppressing the incomes of weak, un-unionized American workers.  A National Bureau of Economic Research paper concurs, citing labor compensation via equity grants and stock options.
And when labor shares are adjusted to reflect changes in the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ accounting, they rose until World War II and have been essentially constant since then.
Finally, before increasing taxes on America’s wealthy, populists should consider that they pay about 44 percent of income taxes, versus about 30 percent in France, Germany and Sweden.
Ron Knecht is a Nevada Policy Research Institute Senior Fellow, President of the NevadaWins PAC, and former state controller and higher education regent. Email RonKnecht@aol.com. 

​President Joe Biden has whispered into public microphones a few times recently that the wealthy should “pay their fair share” of federal taxes.
And what share would that be, Mr. President?
Of course, he doesn’t say what it should be.  Nor even gives a hint of what their shares are now.  That’s normal, though.  When people say the rich should pay their fair share, they really mean we should increase taxes on those folks regardless of what their rates now are.
So, I’ll provide facts and data on those rates, as I’ve done in the past.  The Tax Foundation (TF), using the official statistics from the Internal Revenue Service, has published the key data for 2018, the latest year for which tax data are available.  TF summarizes: “the U.S. individual income tax continued to be progressive, borne primarily by the highest income earners.”
As the details show, that’s an understatement.  The individual income tax was highly progressive by 2001 and has gotten distinctly more so this century.  Even after the 2017 tax cuts passed by President Donald Trump and Congress in 2017, “average tax rates fell across every income group.”  And proportionately, they fell more for the lower income groups than the higher ones.
Here are the specifics.  The top one percent of earners (those earning more than $540,009 adjusted gross income) paid 33.2 percent of total taxes in 2001, but that rose to 40.1 percent, its highest level this century, in 2018.  The proportion paid by folks between one percent and ten percent of income earners rose slightly.  However, all folks below that top ten percent paid less of the total than the top decile each of those 17 years.  In fact, the amount paid by the bottom half of income earners (earning less than $43,614) declined most: from 4.9 percent to 2.9 percent.
The tax share paid by the top one percent of earners, 40.1 percent, exceeded greatly the share paid by the bottom 90 percent combined, 28.6 percent.  And the top one percent paid a 25.4 percent average income tax rate, while the bottom 50 percent paid one-seventh that rate, 3.4 percent.  Across the scale, as income increases, the tax rate paid increases substantially.
Now, what was that, Mr. President, about people paying their fair share?  Warren Buffet may trumpet (brag or complain) that he pays a lower rate than his secretary, but that’s only an anecdote.  When you look at the full range of data, Mr. Buffet’s story is highly unrepresentative of the central facts.
Perhaps someone will answer that the rich have taken an ever greater share of income and that caused their tax contributions to rise.  As explained below, that’s not true, either, because the income share of the top one percent has fluctuated with business cycles.  The high point for the income of the top one percent of earners as a share of the total was in 2007, at nearly 23 percent.
In 2018, rich folks’ share of income fell to 20.9 percent from 21 percent the year before.  But their share of federal income taxes in that same year rose from 38.5 percent to 41 percent.  So, even the Trump tax cuts were highly progressive, contrary to claims of their opponents.
In sum, the rich – the top ten percent by income – paid 71.4 percent of total taxes, while everybody else – the bottom 90 percent, including the upper middle class – paid only 28.6 percent.  Thus, the rich ten percent of the population paid 22.5 times as much of the total tax bill each as the bottom 90 percent of earners.  Is 22.5-to-1 fair?
Two final points.  The level of per-capita government transfer payments, as a share of U.S. median personal income, is nearly three times as high now as in 1974.  Taxing the rich has led to very high subsidies for many others.
Second, as summarized in a recent extensive analysis by Scott Lincicome, “Whether it’s income, ‘labor share,’ or wealth, numerous studies by respected academics rebut the scary headlines and beltway conventional wisdom about rampant inequality in the United States. … the increase in inequality since the Good Old Days … has been, at best, non-existent and at worst, moderate …”
Ron Knecht is a Nevada Policy Research Institute Senior Policy Fellow, President of the Nevada Wins PAC, and former State Controller and higher education Regent.  RonKnecht@aol.com.

As Ben Franklin left the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787, he was asked what kind of government we would have.  “A Republic,” he replied, “if you can keep it.”
The Founders addressed that and other challenges by establishing checks and balances among three branches of the federal government and between it and the states.
The Constitution’s fostering of the rule of law, individual liberties, economic freedom and other important protections for human flourishing withstood a number of assaults, including the Civil War, for nearly 100 years.  Then, from Otto von Bismarck’s Germany, came progressivism.
It first took root here with the 1883 Pendleton Act, which provided that some federal jobs be awarded based on merit and their employees be selected via competitive exams.  It also made unlawful the firing or demotion for political reasons of employees covered by the act – ending half a century of the political “spoils” system.  Now, civil service covers most federal employees.
All that seemed perfectly reasonable at first, as so many reforms do.
With the rise of labor unions, public employees suggested they should be able to collectively bargain for pay and terms.  But in 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt, a strong supporter of organized labor, drew the line.  He said collective bargaining had “insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.”  Employee groups can’t be considered equals for collective bargaining to the People as a whole, represented by Congress.
In 1960, two percent of state and local employees had collective bargaining; it was 63 percent by 2010.  Now in many states, public employee unions are the tail that wags the policy dog, especially via election contributions.  The public interest is subordinated to this special interest that is as predatory on the public, liberty and growth as it’s allowed by politicians to be.
Back to 1887: progressives created the Interstate Commerce Act to federally regulate railroads’ monopolistic practices, followed by anti-trust law.  Public utility regulation began to replace legislative acts at the federal, state and local levels, reaching transportation, telecommunication, energy, water services and others.  At all three levels, environmental, public health and safety, labor, financial, economic and other regulation has proliferated right up to the present.
Again, it all seemed so reasonable at first.  However, a massive body of rigorous academic literature has documented the capture of regulators to serve the purposes of regulated firms and their investor and labor special interests at the expense of the public and consumer interests and to the disadvantage of new firms, technologies and innovations.
All this delegation of governmental power to mostly unelected political bodies has been termed the modern administrative (or regulatory) state.  With the approval often of courts, these agencies have developed what are called quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial powers – exercising the power of law without legislative action, executive concurrence or even much judicial oversight.
Today’s federal Environmental Protection Agency even seeks to regulate home building by owners of properties where minor mud puddles appear after rains, even though the mudflats have no direct connection to the navigable waters of the United States.  And some state governors mandate Covid-19 shots capriciously.  (I’ve had my two jabs and recommend them for you too.)
As this massive complex of bureaucracies has metastasized, it has diminished economic growth and freedom and thus, arguably, human flourishing and aggregate wellbeing.  And we are all cramped daily by administrative state.  But wait!  There’s more.
Sixty years ago, stakeholder analysis was developed to describe relationships of private firms and governments to special interests affected by their policies and practices.  Soon, this morphed into “stakeholder theory,” which posits that firms owe duties to stakeholders comparable to their basic fiduciary duties to investors.  It holds governments owe duties to special interests comparable to those owed to the citizenry as a whole, taxpayers and the public interest.
So now, among legions of examples, we have oppressive occupational licensing requirements, free speech suppression, tax-hiking prevailing wage laws, government-sanctioned racial discrimination and very uneconomic domestic shipping regulations.  It well may be the cumulative effect of all this has become unbearable to people and untenable for normal commerce.
Ron Knecht is a Nevada Policy Research Institute Senior Policy Fellow and former state controller, higher education regent, senior economist, college teacher and legislator.  Contact: RonKnecht@aol.com. ​

President Ronald Reagan said the problem with liberals is less the things they don’t know and more the things they “know” that aren’t so.  A recent opinion piece in the Reno newspaper illustrates his point perfectly, plus reasons liberals and progressives are so wrong about so much.
Jim Hightower, journalist, progressive Democrat activist and former elected Texas Agriculture Commissioner, wrote, “for decades, national and state lawmakers have flaunted their ignorance of what makes a good society by stupidly shortchanging our investment in our youngest minds.”
Nowhere in that column does he provide any real evidence, let alone numbers, to show education and childcare are underfunded in the U.S.  Note also another habit of so many liberals, Democrats, progressives and journalists: bashing by labeling, also without evidence, anyone who disagrees with them as stupid, ill-intentioned and “deplorable.”
He adds, “At the same time, corporate and government policymakers have intentionally rigged our economic and political systems to hold down workers’ incomes even while their living expenses rise.”  He continues in this vein, with wholly unsupported, false claims and hateful vituperation.  For example, he labels our present practices on childcare and education as “we don’t care” policies.
Ultimately, he advocates that childcare be wholly the province of government subsidy or direct provision based on a very limited World War II program that subsidized pre-school childcare for the Rosie the Riveter families.  Apparently, he, other Democrats and progressives think the raising of children can’t be left to mere parents but must be handled by government and away-from-home institutions.
Another day, I’ll address what a failure that approach has been.  For now, let’s focus on the funding of K-12 education.
I addressed education in 2019 in my last Controller’s Annual Report, using data that’s still the latest available.  Referring to international data on student achievement and spending, I noted the U.S. spent $12,176 per student per year, or fourth most in the world, but ranked 23rd among 79 nations in achievement.
Compared to our $12,176 per student, Japan, the top achieving nation, spent only $9,934, or 82 percent as much.  The next four achievement-ranking countries were Estonia ($6,991, or 57 percent), Canada ($10, 440, or 86 percent), Finland ($9,779, or 80 percent) and Korea ($10,030, or 82 percent).  The average for 34 advanced economies was $9,302, or 76 percent.
Further, we spent $8.32 per scoring point in the rankings while then top five countries spent between $4.44 and $6.65, with $6.30 as the average for the 34 advanced countries.  In short, we spend a lot and get little from our primarily government-run schools.  So, the problem is not spending, but instead the performance of our schools.
Other data compiled by NPRI show that American real (inflation-adjusted) total education spending has soared 192 percent since the 1970s, but mathematics achievement has risen only two percent and reading only 0.7 percent.  Further spending per state per student has long shown little to no statistical correlation with student achievement.
The dominance of labor unions in educational policy and spending, especially among Democrats, is a major cause of our educational failure, because their interests conflict with those of students, parents, taxpayers and the public.  This is demonstrated by the fact the real cost per pupil rose 256 percent from 1970 to 2018, driven mainly by per-pupil increases of 252 percent in non-teaching staff (especially the diversity bureaucracy and other administrators) and 157 percent in number of teachers. 
Nevada student achievement lags that in nearby comparable states that spend less than we do, too.  Over 100 Clark County schools have for years received failing grades from the state.  Yet, school officials claim the district hasn’t had a single ineffective principal or administrator for at least the last four years!
Thus, the increases in spending and number of staff (mainly union members) per pupil have not significantly improved student achievement.  But they have benefited the providers in education and throughout the public sector.  Real and popular reforms work, including parental choice, high quality teachers, technology-assisted learning, performance pay for teachers and real accountability.  But unions oppose them.
Liberals, Democrats, progressives and unions live on narratives, memes, false assertions and hate-driven attacks against those who disagree.  Not facts and data.
Ron Knecht is a Senior Policy Fellow at the Nevada Policy Research Institute (NPRI) and formerly State Controller, a higher education Regent, Senior Economist, college teacher and Assemblyman.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com.  ​

​Our friend Frederic Marc Weinberg, Chief Executive Officer of USA Radio Networks and Nevada Radio LLC, passed away September 23 in Sparks NV after a few months of illness.  He was a great American, outstanding radio executive and fine person.
Fred was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico March 17, 1952, the son of Rose and Dr. Philip Weinberg.  Dr. Weinberg moved the family to Peoria IL in 1956, when he joined the faculty of Bradley University.
Fred attended Richwoods High School in Peoria, where he developed a love of photography and sports reporting.  He flew with the Civil Air Patrol and worked as a stringer for the Peoria Journal Star before heading off to college at Southern Illinois University.  He returned to Peoria to study journalism at Bradley.  He became involved with WCBU, the campus radio station, where he was station manager.
Fred took a detour from broadcasting in 1975 for careers at the Penny Press Peoria Newspaper, E. F. Hutton, and ownership of Three Worlds Disco.  He also tried his hand in the oil business and did a stint with ABC TV before deciding to get back into the business he loved -- r adio.
Weinberg owned stations in Claremore/Tulsa, Oklahoma and Las Vegas, Nevada.  He put together a chain of small radio stations across Nevada before joining USA Radio Networks in 2016.  He bought out that business in 2018 and ran it as CEO until his death.
USA Radio Networks provides long - form radio shows and news to more than 400 stations across the country.  They also run stations in Dallas, Phoenix and Cedar Rapids, IA.  Weinberg also published the Penny Press Nevada, a conservative weekly online newspaper , and worked with conservative political causes in his spare time.
He was known to broadcasters and politicians across the country.  Sometimes boisterous and often opinionated, he always had a deal working. Two cellphones and a laptop seemed to be attached to his body.  Fred was loyal to a fault , and his employees stuck with him through many stations and opportunities, good times and bad.
Fred met his wife Charlotte Alarid in Las Vegas in 1999.  They married in Hawaii in 2004.  She survives, as well as his step-children , Randi and Stephen Alarid, both in Reno.  Weinberg is also survived by sisters Susan Weinberg (Martin Arend) and Andrea Weinberg-Chestnut, two nieces and two great-nephews.
TALKERS founder Michael Harrison said, “Fred Weinberg was an outstanding example of the special breed of radio station owner/operator that has kept this increasingly corporatized industry rooted in its communities and accessible to entrepreneurial business visionaries motivated by their love of the medium.”
Janet Bro said, “Fred was one of the smartest guys in the business.  In 1974, Fred’s father, dean of engineering at Bradley University, fired him from his position as station manager at campus radio WCBU-FM where he worked.  He told him, ‘If you want your own effin radio station, go buy your own effin radio station.’  So, Fred did and never looked back.”
We shall miss him.
A memorial service will be held in Carson City on November 6; the location will be announced soon.  In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Weinberg Family Scholarship fund at Bradley University in Fred’s name.  https://www.bradley.edu/giving/ .
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & PE(CA) is a Senior Policy Fellow at the Nevada Policy Research Institute and former State Controller.  Janet Bro, USA Radio Networks Chief Operating Officer, was Fred’s friend for 48 years.  Contact Ron at RonKnecht@aol.com.

​It’s been another rough year with pandemic, lockdowns, wildfires, smoke and left-wing nuttiness.  Perhaps my annual love note will make things better:
Cartoonist Gus Arriola knew he was a blessed man in many ways – one in particular – and he illustrated it beautifully in his 1941-85 daily comic strip Gordo.  I, too, am blessed many ways, especially the particular way he was.
Gordo Lopez, Arriola’s comic-strip alter ego, was a poor Mexican bean farmer who later became a tour-guide dandy with a sharp eye for pretty ladies.  As a bean farmer, he dressed simply: floppy-brimmed sombrero, short baggy pants with a rope belt, formless shirt and perhaps a serape – all in peasant off-white – plus sandals.  He lived in a small adobe hut and spoke broken English.  But he was a carefree happy man.
Then a neighbor moved in, Mary Frances Sevier, a lovely, vivacious, sophisticated belle with a puhh-fect southern accent.  Actually, Gus had married the real “France” (as he called her) a few years before.
Over time, Gordo’s clothes, home, life and everything about the strip evolved toward great beauty.  His peasant togs yielded to “el vestido de Charro”: high-healed leather boots, brocaded trousers, ruffled shirt, waist-length jacket and flat-brimmed sombrero – with silver and gold decorations, colorful embroidery, buttons and even a large billowy bow tie.  His home became beautiful and his tourist taxi stylish.  Even his guitar morphed from plain to exquisite mariachi.
Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz said Gordo was “probably the most beautifully drawn strip in the history of the business."  It was also quite funny with sophisticated puns and wordplay.
Arriola once explained the change in Gordo’s life reflected the effect France had on his own life.  She had made his life beautiful, he said.  There I began to see my own story.
Unlike the bean farmer, I mis-spent the 1980s and 1990s as a single yuppie in San Francisco’s Marina district – a prolonged young-adulthood.  The dream come true for a small-town boy from the Midwest.
I had a strong career as an economic, engineering, financial and policy analyst, expert witness, and consulting executive.  Jetting to Atlanta, Anchorage, Honolulu, Boston, etc.  Attending grad school at one of the world’s top universities in a unique academic program, Engineering Economic Systems, that was just what I wanted.  Finally, law school.
Plus, the symphony, opera, ballet and all the movies and theatre anyone could want.  Eating out in the culinary capital of the West.  Weekend drives along the stunning coast or skiing at Lake Tahoe.  And, of course, Sunday brunch.  All with friends in a beautiful and exciting place.
Running or bicycling the Presidio, Golden Gate Bridge and Marin headlands.  Basketball, racquetball and weights at the Bay Club.  And benefitting from ladies’ complaints that almost all the attractive men were married or gay.
From my business and social life, unlike Gordo, I already had the clothes.  But my small, dreary, poorly furnished apartment on a noisy corner was another matter.  It indicated the important things I was missing: home and family.
Then, I met Kathy.  She enjoyed the social whirl and activites, but slowly our relationship took on dimensions others hadn’t.  I moved into a large unfurnished classic yuppie pad.  We spent weekends looking for grandfather clocks, dining room sets and antiques.  China, crystal, silver and Christmas ornaments.  Plus dinner parties Mary Frances Sevier herself would have adored.
When Kathy stepped up in a key crisis, I realized she’d already brought me the gift of home and it was time for family.  Marrying her brought the bonus of the best mother-in-law ever – although Kathy argues that’s the one she acquired.
As she was carrying our daughter, we agreed we had enjoyed as much of California as we could stand.  Her mom agreed, and we all headed for the sane side of the Sierra, landing in Carson City after Karyn was born.  For 23 years, I’ve been blessed with a nearly perfect home and family life.  Kathy has made my life beautiful.
So, on our anniversary this Monday, I’ll start the morning as I do each day: by kissing her lips as she sleeps and whispering in her ear: “I’ll love you forever, Kathy, with all my heart and soul.”
Ron Knecht is a Senior Policy Fellow at the Nevada Policy Research Institute.  Previously, he was State Controller, a higher education Regent, college teacher, Senior Economist and Assemblyman.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com.

​Last week, I wrote that our educators and media mislead people by claiming subjects such as social justice, systemic racism, equity, diversity and inclusion being introduced in our K-12 schools are not Critical Race Theory (CRT).
These subjects are simplified versions of CRT just as high school civics is in part an introductory version of Constitutional Law taught in college and law school.  And CRT and other Critical Theory subjects involving gender, ethnic, sexual preference and practice, feminism and cultures are all social neo-Marxism.  They’re simple-minded and destructive of human wellbeing and fairness.
In response, an acquaintance referenced my use of “alleged victimization” in today’s society, saying:
“I think of our countries [sic] slavery, I also think about jim crow.  Then there were poll taxes, lynching until the 1950’s.  Didn’t hear about the Tulsa massacre of 1921 until a few years ago.  The difference in pay between whites and blacks is pervasive.  We mustn’t forget about redlining either.  Segregation in our schools which still continues.  I went to college in the 1960’s in Louisiana and I saw first hand how the black community was treated.
“And now states are passing laws to make it more difficult for the blacks to vote.  And many states are passing are passing laws forbidding the teaching of black history.  I truly don’t understand this thought process.  What am I missing Ron?”
First, he’s missing the clear progress his parade of horribles illustrates.  Yes, America joined the rest of the world in the evil tradition of slavery.  We didn’t invent it and were not unusual in it.  But our Constitution included the revolutionary aspirational statement: “All men are created equal.”
We moved ever more toward our aspiration until we led the world in this regard.  In our Civil War, a larger fraction of white Americans died than in any other conflict – to end slavery.
Jim Crow, poll taxes and lynching were bad, but not as bad as slavery.  I heard about Tulsa long ago, as well as the government’s syphilis study crimes at the Tuskegee Institute.  Pay gaps have long been closing, and redlining has ended.  School segregation is now mainly due to residential segregation.  The South in the 1960s?  A higher percentage of blacks now vote in some southern states than whites.
It’s a lie that states are now passing laws to make it more difficult for blacks than whites to vote.  He refuses to recognize the inherent fairness and reasonableness of voter ID.  It’s also a lie that new laws forbid the teaching of black history.  They forbid the lies of alleged social justice, systemic racism, equity, diversity and inclusion.
We still have a way to go.  However, I challenge anyone to show me another major nation that’s doing better.  Racism and related issues?  Chinese communists versus Uighurs.  Tutsis versus Hutus.  Iran versus the Jews.  Japanese versus the world?
So, listen to Derrick Wilburn, a black man, in his recent address to his school board:
“I’m the direct descendent of the North American slave trade. … I’m not oppressed and I’m not a victim. … I am treated with kindness, dignity and respect, literally from coast to coast. … We are not victims of some unseen 190-year-old force that kind of floats around in the ether. …
“I can think of nothing more damaging to a society than to tell a baby born today that she has grievances against another baby born today simply because of what their ancestors may have done two centuries ago.”
Black radio host Larry Elder explains some lingering inequalities we’re trying to end:
“The number one problem domestically in this country is the breakdown of the family. … A kid raised without a dad is five times more likely to be poor and commit crimes, nine times more likely to drop out of school and 20 times more likely to end up in jail. …
“The biggest problem that black people have … is the percentage of blacks, 75 percent of them, that are raised without fathers.  And that has every social negative consequence connected to it: crime, not being able to compete economically, … being more likely to be arrested.”
That’s what you’re missing.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & PE(CA), is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Nevada Policy Research Institute.  Previously, he served as State Controller, a higher education Regent, Senior Economist, college teacher and Assemblyman.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com.

​Many people around the country have accused schools of teaching or planning to teach Critical Race Theory (CRT) to K-12 students.  Schools have denied it, claiming they’re teaching subjects such as social justice, equity, systemic racism, diversity and inclusion.
Also, programs such as “No Place for Hate,” “Teaching Tolerance,” “Learning for Justice,” “Black Lives Matter at School” and “The 1619 Project” from the New York Times.
Mainstream media, including Associated Pres, join the educrats in going to great lengths to distinguish CRT from these subjects.  They insist CRT is an arcane subject taught only in law or graduate schools and unreachable by younger students.  So, implicitly the K-12 subjects and programs are unrelated to it.
That claim’s a lie.  Pure CRT is indeed taught mainly in law and graduate schools, but also in some undergraduate classes – just as, for example, Constitutional Law is taught.  But just as ninth-grade civics is integrally related to con law, these K-12 subjects and programs go hand in glove with CRT.
CRT and these K-12 subjects are all based on treating society as composed of identity groups inherently in conflict, not free individuals as the elements of society, politics and economics.  CRT’s essential groups are race based; other Critical Theory bases include gender, sexual practice and preference, feminism and cultures.  The new K-12 teaching usually includes these variants too.
What all this has in common is that their approach to analysis, doctrine, advocacy and practice is essentially social and political Marxism.  That is, they are based on the idea that certain characteristics such as race (gender, etc.) are the key factors in defining rather rigid social and political groups that are inherently in conflict with each other.  Marxism, of course, used economic groups such as the proletariat, capitalists and bourgeoisie.
Critical Theory posits that some groups – men, whites, straights, Christians, western cultures – are privileged over others by law, social structures, economics, education, etc.  The privilege is so ingrained, pervasive and strong, even when not apparent, that it permeates all of society and persists despite social change, anti-discrimination laws and reform.  It continues through decades and centuries to unfairly benefit the privileged groups and allow them to oppress the others.
The privilege and dominance even resist integration and intermarriage.
Hence, the essence of all social, political and economic interaction now, in the past and future is unfairness, dominance, subjugation and exploitation.  That is, systemic racism (sexism, etc.) that results continuously in exploitation of the allegedly powerless by the supposedly privileged.  Since this pattern is so resistant to any change, the only outcome is perpetual oppression of disadvantaged groups by privileged classes.
Unless, of course, the powerless organize by their social identities as determined by Critical Theory, and continuously and aggressively confront and challenge the alleged oppressor groups.  To the extent this conflict takes place in legal terms, it requires analyzing all matters in terms mainly of the defined neo-Marxist groups and basing law now and in the future on reverse racism, on favoring minority sexual preference groups, etc.
To the extent this conflict takes place in political terms, the politics is based on the poisonous identity-group conflicts with which we’ve struggled in recent decades.
In any event, the basic solution is to replace individual equality and real fairness with group equity, very strained and limited notions of diversity, and coerced inclusion.
Traditional high school civics and K-12 history teach individual sovereignty and liberty, separation of governmental powers, private property and economic enterprise without getting much into the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings supporting these practices and institutions.  Similarly, the new subjects and programs taught in K-12 present systemic racism, social justice, equity, diversity and inclusion without getting much into the legal, social, political and economic theory underlying Critical Theory.
But Critical Theory is the essential basis of all this doctrine and dogma.
Moreover, all this alleged victimization; this evil supposedly inherent in the structure of America, the West, free markets, private property, enterprise and democracy; the resentment and hate taught as a motivator of progressive and radical activism; and the solution to dismantle America and the rest are truly pernicious and destructive of human wellbeing and real fairness.
Parents are right to insist this crap end.
Ron Knecht, MS, JD & JD(CA), is a Senior Policy Fellow at the Nevada Policy Research Institute.  Previously, he served Nevadans as State Controller, a higher education Regent, Senior Economist, college teacher and Assemblyman.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com.

​Andy Mathews of Las Vegas, the freshman star of the 2021 General Assembly, announced this week he’ll be running for Nevada State Controller in 2022.  What a blessing for Nevadans!
Perhaps the best way to describe his qualifications is this anecdote I heard.  The Democrat leadership told the Republican leadership at the start of the session when committee assignments were being made that Mathews would not be appointed to the Ways and Means Committee that hears the budget.
The reason?  He’s too knowledgeable about the facts and numbers and, because he’s very diligent and smart, he asks too many questions that would be inconvenient to the Democrats.  His performance in all regards during the session justified completely that view.
Assembly Republicans across the board have given their highest praise to him, and many Democrats echo their views, but only off the record.
Born in 1978 in New Bedford, MA, Andy graduated from Boston University’s College of Communications and began his professional career as a sports journalist for national media outlets, including FOX.  I’ve read much of his writing, which he turns out rapidly, and he’s an excellent writer.  Because he’s a clear and rigorous thinker, does his homework, and is good with facts and numbers.  Just what we need for Controller, Nevada’s chief fiscal officer.
He realized his real passion is the principles that made America great, and he moved to Nevada, where he’s led battles for liberty, prosperity and individual opportunity since 2006.  He served nearly four years as President of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a non-profit organization that’s been Nevada’s foremost government watchdog.  NPRI focuses on issues including fiscal accountability, government transparency and education reform.
With Mathews at the helm, NPRI led the intellectual battle against the margin tax ballot in 2014, bringing it down at the polls by a lopsided measure.  They also played a leading role in increasing educational freedom in Nevada, promoting the Education Savings Accounts that put the Silver State at the forefront of the national school-choice movement.
On transparency, under Mathews, NPRI’s outstanding technicians and analysts created the website TransparentNevada.com that’s the standard for extensive, detailed information for all of us on where and how our tax dollars are being spent.
As an Assemblyman, he consistently opposed destructive tax increases.  He also introduced several reform measures to greatly increase government transparency and efficiency.
He says, “Having spent my early life in the liberal Northeast, I’ve gained a deep love and appreciation for the individualism and liberty-inspired ideals of Nevada and the West.”  He recognizes that perhaps the most effective base from which to promote his ideals is as Controller.
“I’m proud of my record fighting for government transparency, fiscal responsibility and pro-growth policies essential to a robust and thriving economy,” he says.  “Nevadans deserve that.”
Besides making government more transparent and accountable to we who fund it, Andy will work to:
·       Fully utilize Nevada’s recently upgraded financial technological infrastructure to better provide us with accurate, detailed information on all aspects of government funding.
·       Oppose destructive tax hikes and new taxes on hard-working Nevadans.
·       Rein in runaway government spending.
·       Restore fiscal sanity in our state capital.
Like Ronald Reagan, Mathews doesn’t believe government should control your life.  He believes we should have control of our government.
I did the Controller’s job for four years, and I know what it takes.  Andy Mathews has exactly the right combination of vision; technical, analytic and quantitative skill; and great communications talents to be successful.
He’s also a charming and modest person and has the experience, organizational and leadership skills to get the most out of the good folks that staff that office.  And to work with the Legislature, other executive branch agencies and the public and press.
Except for the vision and communications parts, that may all sound a bit nerdy.  Thus the job fit me well.  Andy has the combination of charisma, political skill and nerd that’s exactly right.  He also already has the enthusiastic endorsements of former Governor Robert List, former Lt. Governor Lorraine Hunt and former Attorney General Adam Laxalt.
And he’s getting married September 4 to Valerie Bell, a gem of a lady who’s also a gemologist.
Elect Andy Mathews Controller.
Ron Knecht is Senior Policy Fellow at the Nevada Policy Research Institute.  Previously, he served Nevadans as State Controller, a higher education Regent, Senior Economist, college teacher and Assemblyman.  Contact him at RonKnecht@aol.com.  
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