Sustainable Government
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
At the recent meeting of the Nevada Stakeholders Group a comment provided during the public comment process urged the committee to consider sustainability as an element in our “vision” for Nevada’s future. This novel idea takes into account the need to pay for the government programs with tax revenues that have the ability to be covered by those in the private sector who have to ante up in order for the spending to be done. Sustainability is a catchy idea that certain folks like to throw around as the watch-word everybody else is supposed to live their lives vigilantly in accordance with. What is its potential for government adoption?
Agricultural sustainability means we’re supposed to be constrained to the boundaries of what is socially acceptable for natural resource use (environmentally correct) and what is perceived and promoted to be appropriate for consumer interests. For some, on a very rare occasion the notion that farmers and ranchers need to be profitable enough to make a living also enters into the discussion, but for the most part the profit thing is either not discussed or is portrayed as the greedy pursuit of those identified as being corporate/factor farming (therefore not-desirable) producers. It is sometimes interesting to see where the person making the judgment in regard to where the bench-mark might be on the scale of acceptable and out-of-bounds, but there is a point where the proper concept of “sustainable agriculture” is exceeded and negative judgments can be leveled.
Environmental limitations also dictate the need for “sustainability,” contriving justifiable points of restricted freedom and appropriate conduct in order for maintaining a sense that through our actions we can either make the world a perfect Utopia or cause untold devastation.
In most cases sustainability requires an all-powerful and iron-fisted government to keep people properly regulated and controlled to keep anyone from gaining anything other than socially-acceptable gains. This makes a sustainable government an interesting concept to consider. Government living within its means – restrained in pursuit of expansion…how would that work out?
Limited government and boundaries which keep programs from extending into every aspect of our personal lives or draining the final remnants from our bank accounts – do you suppose that could be included as a workable idea in the Nevada Vision for the next 5, 10 or 20 year time-frames? Would our quality of life be able to be achieved or enhanced with less government and more personal responsibility/opportunity?
Some would argue (and with a good basis) that sustainability is exactly opposite of what the Vision Stakeholders are supposed to be working on. Our job is to dream the impossible dream – reach for the unreachable star…make it as likely as possible that new and creative tax schemes will be necessary to finance our construction of a state which ranks higher on the charts in those selected areas where measurement is considered on the basis of how much gets spent.
It will be worth watching over the next couple of weeks, as the consultants return to the Vision Stakeholders the proposals for what might make the discussion of where things go from here. Sustainability would be a make for a great additional criterion to be used in weighing the likely concepts which will be evaluated for the final report.
At the recent meeting of the Nevada Stakeholders Group a comment provided during the public comment process urged the committee to consider sustainability as an element in our “vision” for Nevada’s future. This novel idea takes into account the need to pay for the government programs with tax revenues that have the ability to be covered by those in the private sector who have to ante up in order for the spending to be done. Sustainability is a catchy idea that certain folks like to throw around as the watch-word everybody else is supposed to live their lives vigilantly in accordance with. What is its potential for government adoption?
Agricultural sustainability means we’re supposed to be constrained to the boundaries of what is socially acceptable for natural resource use (environmentally correct) and what is perceived and promoted to be appropriate for consumer interests. For some, on a very rare occasion the notion that farmers and ranchers need to be profitable enough to make a living also enters into the discussion, but for the most part the profit thing is either not discussed or is portrayed as the greedy pursuit of those identified as being corporate/factor farming (therefore not-desirable) producers. It is sometimes interesting to see where the person making the judgment in regard to where the bench-mark might be on the scale of acceptable and out-of-bounds, but there is a point where the proper concept of “sustainable agriculture” is exceeded and negative judgments can be leveled.
Environmental limitations also dictate the need for “sustainability,” contriving justifiable points of restricted freedom and appropriate conduct in order for maintaining a sense that through our actions we can either make the world a perfect Utopia or cause untold devastation.
In most cases sustainability requires an all-powerful and iron-fisted government to keep people properly regulated and controlled to keep anyone from gaining anything other than socially-acceptable gains. This makes a sustainable government an interesting concept to consider. Government living within its means – restrained in pursuit of expansion…how would that work out?
Limited government and boundaries which keep programs from extending into every aspect of our personal lives or draining the final remnants from our bank accounts – do you suppose that could be included as a workable idea in the Nevada Vision for the next 5, 10 or 20 year time-frames? Would our quality of life be able to be achieved or enhanced with less government and more personal responsibility/opportunity?
Some would argue (and with a good basis) that sustainability is exactly opposite of what the Vision Stakeholders are supposed to be working on. Our job is to dream the impossible dream – reach for the unreachable star…make it as likely as possible that new and creative tax schemes will be necessary to finance our construction of a state which ranks higher on the charts in those selected areas where measurement is considered on the basis of how much gets spent.
It will be worth watching over the next couple of weeks, as the consultants return to the Vision Stakeholders the proposals for what might make the discussion of where things go from here. Sustainability would be a make for a great additional criterion to be used in weighing the likely concepts which will be evaluated for the final report.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 4/9/2010 12:14 PM 
Categories: Nevada Vision Project
Tags: Vision Group Nevada Budget State Spending Taxes Nevada Legislature
Categories: Nevada Vision Project
Tags: Vision Group Nevada Budget State Spending Taxes Nevada Legislature
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