Wizard's Positions on Nevada 2016 Propositions

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4 members have voted

October 19th, 2016 at 4:59:04 PM permalink
Wizard
Administrator
Member since: Oct 23, 2012
Threads: 239
Posts: 6095
One good thing about Nevada, compared to California, is there isn't 100 propositions to consider every election. Here in the Silver State we have just five. Here they are and my position on them.

  1. Gun background check initiative. This initiative seeks to close the "gun show" loophole for requiring background checks to buy a gun. The arguments for and against are the same as every gun control law. Those against it claim it is a step towards eliminating the second amendment and only inconveniences lawful citizens while criminals will find ways to buy guns anyway. The side in favor says that it may not keep every gun out of the hands of criminals, but let's at least try for sensible gun control.

    I support this initiative all the way. I support law-abiding citizens right to bear arms and oppose it for everybody else. Closing the gun show loophole seems like a common sense idea to me.
  2. Legalizing marijuana for recreational use. This would legalize and regulate recreational marijuana use.

    In the interests of letting adults do what they wish, as long as they aren't hurting anybody else, I support this initiative. In all victim-less crimes I believe it is better to tax and regulate than leave it up to the black market. The only thing I don't like is there is a very limited number of licenses, which are already taken by mostly big names in Nevada, leaving ordinary business owners seeking to compete locked out. I know because after I sold my Wizard sites I tried to get into the medical marijuana business but was told that what few licenses were issued were long since taken. However, while I think this is driven by a handful of players who will make huge money off of it, I think the pros outweigh the cons.
  3. Break up the monopoly held by Nevada Power on electricity.

    As someone who studied economics in college, I am totally in favor of the free market and against monopolies. My electricity bill in the summer runs about $450 per month and Vegas experiences rolling blackouts in times of peak demand. I have solar panels on one of my homes and know that Nevada Power has resisted homeowners like me even generating their own power. While I don't know the details, I am in general all in favor of breaking up monopolies.
  4. Exclude sales tax on durable medical equipment.

    I oppose this one marginally. While I may sound like an ogre wanting to tax grandma for buying an oxygen tank, where will it end? The lost tax revenue will have to be made up by increasing taxes elsewhere. I say let's keep it simple and keep sales taxes equal on all durable products.
  5. Fuel revenue indexing.

    This one seeks to keep indexing the gas tax to the rate of inflation. The alternative is to not increase the gas tax.

    I'm all in favor of this one. I think gas taxes should be about what they are in Europe. The people who use the roads should be the ones to pay for their maintenance. Furthermore, fuel taxes will encourage less consumption, which will be good for the environment and ease congestion.


Here is a summary.

  1. Close gun show loophole -- Yes
  2. Legalize recreation marijuana -- Yes
  3. End electricity monopoly -- Yes
  4. Eliminate sales tax on medical equipment -- No
  5. Keep fuel tax indexing -- Yes


More information for each initiative.

What are your positions? Multiple votes allowed.
Knowledge is Good -- Emil Faber
October 19th, 2016 at 5:28:01 PM permalink
terapined
Member since: Aug 6, 2014
Threads: 73
Posts: 11786
Opposed you on 4 and 5
I don't think anything medical should be taxed
Prefer lower taxes

Are you voting for Heck or Cortez Masto?
Trump is losing Nevada but republican Heck has a clear lead.
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own - Grateful Dead "Eyes of the World"
October 19th, 2016 at 5:48:53 PM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
Quote: Wizard


Here is a summary.

  1. Close gun show loophole -- Yes
  2. Legalize recreation marijuana -- Yes
  3. End electricity monopoly -- Yes
  4. Eliminate sales tax on medical equipment -- No
  5. Keep fuel tax indexing -- Yes



What are your positions? Multiple votes allowed.


1. Disagree, criminals do not go to gun shows. All you do is either force guns to be shipped where they could fall into the wrong hands or run good, legal people out of business.

2. Ambivalent. I think pot use is a bad idea with bad results but no longer care. I'd be more in favor if it decriminalized all sales so people who want to grow a small amount for non-commercial sales do not end up in the legal-industrial complex for a victimless crime.

3. Not sure. I am for competition but against forcing utilities to buy power from your rooftop.

4. Disagree. Repeal as many taxes as possible.

5. Disagree. If politicians want to raise taxes let them man up and vote to raise them. I have been hearing the excuse of "the roads are crumbling" for 40 years or more. I have heard the we will run out of oil in 25 years for 35 years now. I have heard that global warming will kill us in 20 years for 30 years now. Not in favor of giving pols a free pass, which is what indexing taxes is doing.
The President is a fink.
October 19th, 2016 at 5:55:54 PM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
>>>>One good thing about Nevada, compared to California, is there isn't 100 propositions to consider every election. Here in the Silver State we have just five. Here they are and my position on them.

So ya' got fewer... so what. They are still lobbyist created campaigns not citizens initiaves against a recalcitrant legislature.


  1. Gun background check initiative. This initiative seeks to close the "gun show" loophole I support law-abiding citizens right to bear arms and oppose it for everybody else. Closing the gun show loophole seems like a common sense idea to me.

  2. The more hurdles you impose the more you subvert the basic right. How about a two week waiting period on license plat purchases. You can hold a show, but there can't be any sales without a two week wait; therefore shows go out of business and your right is solely on paper due to all those hurdles.
  3. Legalizing marijuana for recreational use. This would legalize and regulate recreational marijuana use.

  4. Yeah, its coming but its the millionaire third generation growers who want to do the selling, not some statistician and all his brothers in law.

  5. Break up the monopoly held by Nevada Power on electricity.
  6. Monopolies are their primary asset. The first guy who applied to generate some of his needs from solar and buy the rest got totally shut off by a company that claimed we have a monopoly and we can retain it by forcing innovative industries to go elsewhere.
  7. Exclude sales tax on durable medical equipment.
  8. Durable medical equipment is "sold" at an artificial price of three to eight times actual retail price.
  9. Fuel revenue indexing.

    This one seeks to keep indexing the gas tax to the rate of inflation. The alternative is to not increase the gas tax.

    I'm all in favor of this one. I think gas taxes should be about what they are in Europe. The people who use the roads should be the ones to pay for their maintenance. Furthermore, fuel taxes will encourage less consumption, which will be good for the environment and ease congestion.

  10. Guaranteed revenue streams mean a guaranteed 'trough'. Don't supply it.


October 19th, 2016 at 6:20:19 PM permalink
Pacomartin
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 1068
Posts: 12569
Quote: Wizard
Break up the monopoly held by Nevada Power on electricity.

As someone who studied economics in college, I am totally in favor of the free market and against monopolies. My electricity bill in the summer runs about $450 per month and Vegas experiences rolling blackouts in times of peak demand. I have solar panels on one of my homes and know that Nevada Power has resisted homeowners like me even generating their own power. While I don't know the details, I am in general all in favor of breaking up monopolies.


Pennsylvania broke up the monopoly on power a few years ago. Your bill is split in two pieces. (1) Distribution which is not competitive, and (2) Generation which is competitive. The last bill was for 1610 kWh for
Total Distribution Charges $88.32 (Customer Charge $14.28 plus a per kWh rate)
Total Generation & Transmission Charges $119.95 = 1,610 kWh @ 7.450¢ per kWh
I am willing to bet that is a lot less than what you pay in Las Vegas for an equivalent amount of electricity.

If you support wind or solar generation of electricity you can opt to have your generation company use those technologies. But you will pay a premium rate. For example I might forego my 7.45¢/kWh generation rate and pay as high as 9.22¢/kWh if I believe in the companies policies. The distribution rate is unchanged.

Many companies push free saturdays or sundays with a much higher rate the other days of the week. I find them somewhat distatefull because they oversell the advantages of the plan with trickster language. They often imply that by simply shifting laundry day to a free electricity day you can come out ahead (which is not true).

In Winter of 2014 many people found that they had contracted on a variable rate with a reseller. While they thought they were getting a great rate, they didn't pay attention to the fact that there was no limit on the variability. One local woman said her electricity bill jumped in one month from $233 to $756.

Homeowners with wind or solar generation would obviously like to bank their kwh when they can generate electricity (during the day and in windstorms) and then be able to use the electricity at no charge at night. The ideal arrangement for the homeowner is to deal with “excess generation” by simple "net metering" so that you only pay for the kwh you used above what you generated. Ideally you could store up credit in the summer and use it in the winter. Power companies are obviously opposed to any such simple accounting, and the passage of this amendment is unlikely to change that situation.
October 19th, 2016 at 6:41:10 PM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
Wind generation produces tax credits; the current variation is too much for the grid to handle.

Most utilities have to pay for cogeneration at the 'avoided investment rate' on the theory that if they did not get the power they would have to build a new plant.
October 19th, 2016 at 7:57:53 PM permalink
Wizard
Administrator
Member since: Oct 23, 2012
Threads: 239
Posts: 6095
A lot to respond to here but I'm not sure I'm going to add anything new.

  1. In all things I think there is some sensible balance between the free market and regulation. This position dictates my position on most specific issues.
  2. Regarding gun control, I favor background checks. There should not be exceptions for gun shows or Internet purchases.
  3. Like I said, I'm in favor of a free market. I think anybody who wants to compete in marijuana, electricity, or whatever should be able to. Let the market run it course.
  4. There are too many loopholes in the tax code. Every time you give one person a tax break either somebody else pays for it or it adds to the debt. I'm all in favor of simplifying taxation and in that end I favor no exceptions to sales tax on physical goods.
  5. I strongly favor a balanced budget. An increase in energy taxes would help towards that end.
Knowledge is Good -- Emil Faber
October 20th, 2016 at 12:59:07 PM permalink
Face
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 61
Posts: 3941
On 1, I'm torn. I'm getting to the point where I no longer give a f#$% what people think or show or want to do because no one seems to be taking any sort of common sense approach, nor, and this is especially nor, reaching across the aisle. The are a few libs here who spout ideas, and to be honest, a lot of them, even the more extreme "anti-Ron Swanson" ones, I wouldn't be wholly against IF, and I cannot make the font big enough for this IF, there was reciprocity. But there NEVER is. If one wished to make me get a BG check, AND ballistic fingerprint my many firearms, AND register each and every one, hell, you could mandate training courses based on type similar to the DMV, that's what they will push for. But WHERE'S THE RECIPROCITY? Where is my protection? We should all know by now that any law is a breach of your freedom, and what is taken is NEVER given back, so why not voluntarily give some back as a show of togetherness and cooperation? Say you get all your checks and vetting, but I can then acquire any weapon of any capacity. Or that I can legally defend my self AND my weapons if an attempt to relieve me of them is taken. See, there's none of that. It's always take-take-take. And when I see these "common sense" initiatives get enacted, like the one that focused on mental illness here in the People's Republic, and then see that someone was relieved of their weaponry because they went to the Dr for the blues and was prescribed Xanex ( actually, seriously happened), then you know right where to stuff your legislation. Until I see the first mote of reciprocity or cooperation, consider my fingers jammed dead in my ears.

2 should be easy, but it's .gov. The AZD's of the world will lament that it makes you a lazy bum, and he's not completely in left field, not at all. BUT, that is not cause for legislation. "Being lazy" is not a crime. "Being soft in the head" is not a crime. "Obtaining wonder from idiotic thought experiments" endangers no one. Weed should have all the legislative action of a GD carrot. Period, end of sentence. OK, sure, if you'd like to open a dispensary or otherwise become commercial, yeah. FDA, USDA, it is a consumable, after all. But anything "lemonade stand" or smaller is simply a free pass. 40yrs of the War on Drugs, and it's STILL off the GD radar. And we wonder why we're in the shape we're in...

All the rest seem to be economic questions. I'll spare you my ignorance.
Be bold and risk defeat, or be cautious and encourage it.
October 20th, 2016 at 8:02:53 PM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
Quote: Face
40yrs of the War on Drugs, and it's STILL off the GD radar. And we wonder why we're in the shape we're in...


The war on drugs is such a weird thing. You kind of have to start by asking if the drugs or the war on them cause more damage?

On one hand we have spent hundreds of billions and trampled on civil rights. OTOH even with enforcement we have a snowstorm of heroin at the moment (or whatever analogy you want for the western states where Tar Heroin is not white.) Before that, we had cocaine. During all of that we have meth. And always pot, which seems to be the main drug that crosses cultural lines (heroin catching up there, though!)

Has to be a way, though, to legalize but not promote. Allow but allow without having to walk down the street getting whiffs all the time. Keep it away from schools and no selling it to children. At the same time, let anyone sell it however they want. Soon people will realize who takes pride in their product.
The President is a fink.
October 21st, 2016 at 6:52:24 AM permalink
DJTeddyBear
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 5
Posts: 265
Quote: AZDuffman
1. Disagree, criminals do not go to gun shows.
In that case, why bother having background checks at all? After all, if that's your argument, shouldn't you also argue that crooks don't go to gun stores?
Ignorance is bliss and knowledge is power. But having only some facts can get you into trouble!
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