Emerging Details Shedding Light On How Bad It Is Going To Stay
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
There was quite a bit of finger pointing, name calling and angst over the legislative challenge in getting unemployment benefits extended recently in Washington, D.C.. In the end the ruling regime was successful and things were “set right” with the extension of paying people longer who aren’t working.
Some of the consequences for our current unemployment situation have been not widely reported -- or perhaps completely understood -- although we certainly want to give due credit to the Las Vegas Sun and reporter Cy Ryan for this news account , which does an excellent job of providing background on the impacts of the volume of unemployment and the timelines that have serious ramifications. First and foremost, it needs to be highlighted that the source for unemployment benefits comes from the pocketbooks of business enterprises who have employees. Sometimes when political types jockeying for credit in being so wonderfully benevolent…they forget to explain that they are extending this gracious and caring benefit with other people’s money.
Because Nevada businesses have not been paying enough into the state unemployment fund to cover the costs for meeting the outgo – Nevada has been borrowing funds from the U.S. government to pay out the benefits to the unemployed who are eligible to receive the payments in the state. That bill for borrowed funds is currently reported to be just under $500 Million and could be around $800 Million by the end of the year. To get to where things need to go, the rates paid by employers needs to be increased to get to a point where there is no need for continued borrowing… After stopping the bleeding the additional requirement would be to generate the revenue to pay back the loan and interest… Is anyone’s calculator in the process of figuring out the direction this is all going?
Paying those increased rates to make the system whole is the same as a tax increase – it comes from the same place that the leadership of our state legislature is looking for maintaining the pace of Nevada government growth. Being able to afford all the government we seem to be getting is the reason that our economy is in such bad shape. The prospects for turning things around is also highly doubtful, because all they seem to be interested in doing is making it all that much worse.
The cold, hard realization for all the good that government’s “help” has been doing should be starting to sink in at least a little bit, arriving at the same conclusion reached by this commentary a little while ago by the Nevada Policy Research Institute. Perhaps the reality might result in some determining that continuing deeper into this morass might be evaluated on the worsening state of the overall conditions and changes considered for the misguided approaches being foisted on us. Then we should concentrate on changing the elected representatives who are doing the foisting and replace them with candidates who comprehend the necessity of building prosperity through the private sector’s ability to be successful. Such success can only come from the dismantlement of government’s intrusion and limiting the scope of the public sector to a sustainable and clearly enunciated minor role with a "Do No Harm" frame of reference.
There was quite a bit of finger pointing, name calling and angst over the legislative challenge in getting unemployment benefits extended recently in Washington, D.C.. In the end the ruling regime was successful and things were “set right” with the extension of paying people longer who aren’t working.
Some of the consequences for our current unemployment situation have been not widely reported -- or perhaps completely understood -- although we certainly want to give due credit to the Las Vegas Sun and reporter Cy Ryan for this news account , which does an excellent job of providing background on the impacts of the volume of unemployment and the timelines that have serious ramifications. First and foremost, it needs to be highlighted that the source for unemployment benefits comes from the pocketbooks of business enterprises who have employees. Sometimes when political types jockeying for credit in being so wonderfully benevolent…they forget to explain that they are extending this gracious and caring benefit with other people’s money.
Because Nevada businesses have not been paying enough into the state unemployment fund to cover the costs for meeting the outgo – Nevada has been borrowing funds from the U.S. government to pay out the benefits to the unemployed who are eligible to receive the payments in the state. That bill for borrowed funds is currently reported to be just under $500 Million and could be around $800 Million by the end of the year. To get to where things need to go, the rates paid by employers needs to be increased to get to a point where there is no need for continued borrowing… After stopping the bleeding the additional requirement would be to generate the revenue to pay back the loan and interest… Is anyone’s calculator in the process of figuring out the direction this is all going?
Paying those increased rates to make the system whole is the same as a tax increase – it comes from the same place that the leadership of our state legislature is looking for maintaining the pace of Nevada government growth. Being able to afford all the government we seem to be getting is the reason that our economy is in such bad shape. The prospects for turning things around is also highly doubtful, because all they seem to be interested in doing is making it all that much worse.
The cold, hard realization for all the good that government’s “help” has been doing should be starting to sink in at least a little bit, arriving at the same conclusion reached by this commentary a little while ago by the Nevada Policy Research Institute. Perhaps the reality might result in some determining that continuing deeper into this morass might be evaluated on the worsening state of the overall conditions and changes considered for the misguided approaches being foisted on us. Then we should concentrate on changing the elected representatives who are doing the foisting and replace them with candidates who comprehend the necessity of building prosperity through the private sector’s ability to be successful. Such success can only come from the dismantlement of government’s intrusion and limiting the scope of the public sector to a sustainable and clearly enunciated minor role with a "Do No Harm" frame of reference.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 8/4/2010 9:06 AM 
Categories: Nevada
Tags: Unemployment Weak Economy Nevada 2010 Election Limited Government
Categories: Nevada
Tags: Unemployment Weak Economy Nevada 2010 Election Limited Government
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