Is Economic Diversity Something You Buy?
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
Economic diversification is one of the quality of life components assigned to the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group and is currently scheduled for specific attention in the form of goals and strategies at the February 25th meeting of the group.
Because of the importance that this subject area has in the consideration of the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group, this news article in the Jan. 19th Las Vegas Sun caught my eye as being something worth looking into. The wish that our economy had a little more variety has been a long-term talking point of nearly every politician and civic leader to take to a podium, in good economic times and less than positive business cycles.
From my read of most materials it seems a given that in order for our state’s economy to be more diversified – we need to spend more money on education. At least that always seems to be a priority point on why we don’t have as much diversification as we would like. There doesn’t seem to be any consideration as to whether the education we’re paying for needs to be improved…we supposedly just need to spend more money.
Likewise, as is highlighted in the Sun article, there needs to be more money spent on creating incentives and luring business enterprises in other states to come here. This seems to suggest that if you spend enough money (after spending more on education) you can buy or steal the business operations that other states currently have which could be yours if you spend enough money.
The reason we want a more diversified economy is to make sure that when one economic sector is hard-pressed by a down turn, state government will be able to keep collecting more taxes in order to spend more. In other words, we want to put more of a tax burden on the businesses and citizens of the state to be able to afford to persuade businesses who aren’t here to come here so they too can be taxed to give our state government more tax dollars.
I’m looking forward to getting more information on this subject and will be seeking to find additional input to help me figure out whether there might be a better game plan for economic diversification.
My present bias is thinking that we should figure out what type of state business climate we need to promote in policy and practice so that the business enterprises already here can be successful. In my mind business enterprises (of all types and sizes) who start each day working to make ends meet and the ones who provide jobs and generate economic activity that makes our state economy work.
I don’t think that government is the source of the progress we need to seek. Increasing tax burdens or thwarting their productivity through bureaucratic regulatory kingdom building does not provide a favorable business climate that will cause those not here to pull up stakes and move…no matter how much money you’re going to spend to buy their hoped-for relocation.
Figuring out a game-plan on how to grow business diversity on a foundation of business being able to be successful seems to be a direction we should be pursuing. That doesn’t necessarily mean spending more money or increasing tax burdens to have more money to spend.
Economic diversification is one of the quality of life components assigned to the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group and is currently scheduled for specific attention in the form of goals and strategies at the February 25th meeting of the group.
Because of the importance that this subject area has in the consideration of the Nevada Vision Stakeholder Group, this news article in the Jan. 19th Las Vegas Sun caught my eye as being something worth looking into. The wish that our economy had a little more variety has been a long-term talking point of nearly every politician and civic leader to take to a podium, in good economic times and less than positive business cycles.
From my read of most materials it seems a given that in order for our state’s economy to be more diversified – we need to spend more money on education. At least that always seems to be a priority point on why we don’t have as much diversification as we would like. There doesn’t seem to be any consideration as to whether the education we’re paying for needs to be improved…we supposedly just need to spend more money.
Likewise, as is highlighted in the Sun article, there needs to be more money spent on creating incentives and luring business enterprises in other states to come here. This seems to suggest that if you spend enough money (after spending more on education) you can buy or steal the business operations that other states currently have which could be yours if you spend enough money.
The reason we want a more diversified economy is to make sure that when one economic sector is hard-pressed by a down turn, state government will be able to keep collecting more taxes in order to spend more. In other words, we want to put more of a tax burden on the businesses and citizens of the state to be able to afford to persuade businesses who aren’t here to come here so they too can be taxed to give our state government more tax dollars.
I’m looking forward to getting more information on this subject and will be seeking to find additional input to help me figure out whether there might be a better game plan for economic diversification.
My present bias is thinking that we should figure out what type of state business climate we need to promote in policy and practice so that the business enterprises already here can be successful. In my mind business enterprises (of all types and sizes) who start each day working to make ends meet and the ones who provide jobs and generate economic activity that makes our state economy work.
I don’t think that government is the source of the progress we need to seek. Increasing tax burdens or thwarting their productivity through bureaucratic regulatory kingdom building does not provide a favorable business climate that will cause those not here to pull up stakes and move…no matter how much money you’re going to spend to buy their hoped-for relocation.
Figuring out a game-plan on how to grow business diversity on a foundation of business being able to be successful seems to be a direction we should be pursuing. That doesn’t necessarily mean spending more money or increasing tax burdens to have more money to spend.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 1/19/2010 4:03 PM 
Categories: Nevada Vision Project
Tags: Nevada Taxes Economic Development Building A Better Business Climate Economic Diversity
Categories: Nevada Vision Project
Tags: Nevada Taxes Economic Development Building A Better Business Climate Economic Diversity
If the state of Nevada was serious about economic diversification they (state government) would get serious about reducing the regulatory burden. I am reminded of Joel Salitin's book "Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal". There are many people in this state who would like to create a small business, but who head-on into a wall of regulation that makes it impossible for them to make their dreams into reality.
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