Editorials

Clark County School District officials and a wide range of elected officials want more tax money put into public education. They want fully subsidized full-day kindergarten for every child in Southern Nevada and expanded pre-K and early education programs. They want to hire more teachers and specialists. They want pay raises. They want to restore the system’s building maintenance budget. And, eventually, they want new capital revenue to build and renovate schools.

Medical marijuana still makes most local elected officials nervous, despite ample political cover from voters and lawmakers alike.

The illiteracy that plagues Nevada’s public schools is directly related to low high school graduation rates. If children don’t learn to read, they can’t read to learn. The more they fall behind, the more likely they are to drop out.

Federal funding is sweet manna from heaven, as far as local and state officials are concerned. The dollars bolster budgets and support special projects without requiring cuts to other programs that, the public is assured, are far too important to sacrifice. It’s free money.

Late last year, the Clark County Commission entertained the idea of banning news racks from the Strip as part of a larger initiative to reduce pedestrian obstacles. The plan clearly ran afoul of the First Amendment because it would have wiped out an entire source of protected expression within a very large area. Fortunately, commissioners realized the ordinance invited costly litigation and certain court defeat, and they tabled the proposal.

We frequently use this space to criticize government bodies and urge politicians to plot a different course. Sometimes we praise our representatives for doing the right thing. Seldom do we see an elected official, in taking a stand and publicly demanding an end to wasteful nonsense, deserving of a standing ovation. And high fives and fist bumps. And maybe even a hug.

For once, foul winter weather was helpful to Cleveland, Columbus, Kansas City and Denver. (And sunny Phoenix, too.) A massive East Coast snowstorm kept Las Vegas from making its pitch for the 2016 Republican National Convention to the RNC’s Site Selection Committee on March 3. That gave the aforementioned five bidders a head start in persuading Washington types to stage the GOP’s big show in their cities.

On Feb. 26, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stood before his colleagues in Washington, D.C., and defended the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, saying “There’s plenty of horror stories being told. All of them are untrue.” Las Vegan Larry Basich is among many who would beg to differ, and he has $407,000 worth of billable proof for the Nevada Democrat.

Nevada needs jobs. Increasing taxes on job creators will not put people back to work. It will discourage job creation and, without question, cost untold numbers of workers their jobs when struggling companies are forced to close their doors.

The screeners of the Transportation Security Administration are masters of inefficiency, inconvenience and humiliation. Only a small number of airline passengers — a microscopic percentage of the flying public — could be considered a partial match with a terrorist’s profile, yet all travelers are subjected to an intrusive cattle call before being allowed to proceed to their gates. Nursing mothers, the elderly and small children are routinely pulled aside for additional scrutiny. It’s a costly kabuki, designed to make people feel safe in a post-9/11 world, not actually make them safer.