Editorials

Protesters took to the streets in Las Vegas and other cities Thursday to demand a $15 an hour minimum wage for fast-food workers. The irony of the demonstrations was lost on the participants (assuming they were fast-food workers and not operatives paid by the Service Employees International Union). If they get their way, thousands of fast-food workers will quite literally be out on the streets, priced out of their jobs and into the unemployment line.

It needs to be repeated again and again: There is an exceptionally short list of Nevada government entities that need more funding, even though every last one of them is clamoring for tax hikes. The state’s K-12 system is at the top of the list, and Nevada’s awful mental health care system is a close second. And improving mental health care in Nevada holds the promise of reducing costs for police, courts, jails and the overall health care system.

Valley drivers seldom get good news about their commutes. If the highways aren’t packed, they’re really packed because of crashes or construction. To get anywhere on time, drivers must expect delays.

Remember when the viability of the Affordable Care Act was said to be dependent in large part on states creating their own health insurance exchanges? The Nevada Legislature and Gov. Brian Sandoval did just that back in 2011. Good times.

How appropriate that today’s soccer stadium pep rally at City Hall will feature a fresh blanket of astroturf.

The calendar has turned to September, so college students across the country are heading back to their campuses, which are supposed to serve as bastions of free speech and thought.

Banks must cooperate with authorities if the government, working with the courts, can demonstrate that a financial institution’s customer is committing fraud or other crimes. Banks should not be expected to cooperate with authorities who, for political reasons, want to deny financial services to perfectly legal businesses.

This holiday weekend, as the cooler weather of autumn flickers from the horizon, let’s not be alarmists: Even if there are more hamburgers and fewer T-bones on those backyard grills for yet another year, neither famine nor pestilence stalks the land.

More jobs, more recreational opportunities and new tourism infrastructure for Southern Nevada could be blown away by the butterfly effect.

If we were to list every federal tax and fee on these pages, we’d need a few weeks to complete the task. There are so many taxes flowing into Washington that not even the IRS can keep track of them all.