THE LIBERTARIANGet Out The SandbagsTurns out Nevada state lawmakers had in hand a September, 2000 study done by the Sega Company, warning them there was no way to tell what Assembly Bill 555 might cost, before they decided to enact the ill-considered measure, authorizing double-dipping by any retirement-age state worker who manages to convince his fellow bureaucrats he labors in an area of "critical shortage." (Hint: Did that state job exist in 1865? In 1895? If it’s so critical, how did Nevadans survive for so many decades without it?) Last week, Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, and Secretary of State Dean Heller – all paid in taxpayer dollars, not a single one of which will be shifted into their lucky beneficiary’s paycheck – ruled it’s OK for former Reno Police Chief and current DMV Gauleiter Richard Kirkland to draw his $70,000 "retirement pension" at the same time he continues to collect his current, $103,000 paycheck. Why? Because the state faces a "critical shortage" of people willing to run the arrogant, exasperatingly inefficient, totally unnecessary Department of Motor Vehicles at the modest rate of $103,000 per year, of course. State and local governments can’t find help – the Clark County School System has suddenly found it has a "critical" shortage of school psychologists, of all things – because of a "national labor shortage," alleges George Pyne, executive director of the state retirement system. "I hate to seem to agree with a collectivist like this, but I suppose in a broad sense there is a national labor shortage," replies Lew Rockwell, head of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Ala. "Obviously there are many things that the government does at the state or federal level to retard employment," economist Rockwell continues. "The whole Social Security system retards employment; a lot of people who should be employed aren’t because they’re getting this pension from the government. ... "This whole idea of retirement is evil, we get it from Bismarck and then from Roosevelt," based on the long-debunked socialist notion that there are a limited number of jobs and that older people should therefore graciously step aside, "making way for younger workers," Rockwell adds. "People who are mentally and physically able should work as long as they can," the free-market economist advises. "It’s better for them medically and physically and psychically. Never retire; retirement is evil. It’s not good socially or individually. "It’s the same thing with welfare, that’s another whole group of people taken out of the work force. Then the minimum wage outlaws employment below a certain rate of pay. ... So it’s true that there’s a labor shortage. One of the reasons the whole labor market is distorted is because the government is taking these vast sums of money out of the economy and spending it on themselves, ‘Whoopee.’ But they certainly can find someone at $103,000 to serve as a bureaucrat in Nevada. "It would be the DMV," mused Rockwell, current publisher of the Journal of Libertarian studies, founded by the late Murray N. Rothbard. "Why is it the DMV is always the worst bureaucracy, the most arrogant, the most nasty to you and inefficient even by government standards?" School psychologists? Rockwell finds it intriguing that the School District’s George Ann Rice would first target that job specialty to authorize more double-dipping, rather than classroom teachers. "It’s mind control, of course, making sure students never have a thought that would bother the feds. ... And watch, this will set a bad example now, everyone else is going to be campaigning to be able to double-dip, as well. ..." Mr. Pyne now says his state retirement system staff will watch the financial effect of the new law over the course of the next year. But a lot of cash could flow over the dam before this "emergency measure" is due to expire on June 30 of the year 2005. The state Legislature might be well advised to go back and take a much quicker look at the unintended consequences of this measure, plugging the loopholes before this breach in the state budget dam becomes a financial deluge. Nevada state law already requires that proposed statutes bear a staff analysis of the measure’s "likely fiscal impact." But that doesn’t do much good if lawmakers ignore a warning that reads "Financial cost impossible to measure" ... for all the world like so many Homer Simpsons ignoring the flashing red lights on the control panel of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant because they’ve dropped their donut.
July 19, 2001 Vin Suprynowicz [send him mail] is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 – or dialing 775-348-8591. His book, Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998, is available at 1-800-244-2224. Copyright 2001 LewRockwell.com |
D'oh.