LETTERS: State should stop subsidizing billionaires
The article on SolarCity’s grant from the state of Nevada’s Catalyst Fund illustrates how taxpayer money funds corporations that should have to make a profit on their own or go bankrupt (“SolarCity receives $400,000 grant,” Saturday Review-Journal). SolarCity, a rooftop solar company, received its second grant of $400,000 from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development to support its Las Vegas-based financial services business.
Previously, SolarCity received a $1.2 million award from the GOED, which oversees corporate handouts in this state. In 2011, the state Legislature created the office as a discretionary program to subsidize private businesses that expand or relocate to Nevada. Through this program, SolarCity gets its corporate welfare check.
When you dig a little deeper into who runs Solarcity, it might surprise you to learn that Elon Musk, with a net worth of more than $12 billion, is company chairman and owns 21 percent of SolarCity stock. Mr. Musk is also the CEO of Tesla Motors, which recently received millions of dollars in corporate welfare through tax incentives by the governor to build a battery factory in Northern Nevada. Mr. Musk is a genius in business ideas and in how to fleece taxpayers via all of the grants and tax incentives he receives from states and the federal government.
Does Mr. Musk, a multibillionaire, really need more taxpayer money to prop up his companies? What is really unfair about this whole program is that there are small solar companies in Nevada that compete with SolarCity but do not get “free money” through a state-run agency’s grants. Nevada government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. It’s just wrong, and Republicans in particular should be ashamed of promoting and participating in this scheme.
Michael O. Kreps
Las Vegas
Replacing Scalia
In all the noise about replacing Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, I’m confused by the Republican position that the next president should make the nomination, so that the people can have a say in the decision by their votes in the November election. Our own Sen. Dean Heller supports that, saying that “Nevadans should have a voice in the process” (“Heller opposes Obama high court nomination,” Thursday Review-Journal).
A voice in the process? What do these Republicans think the people have been doing all these years? They quickly saw what a Democratic-controlled government had in store for the country, and they voted to take the House of Representatives away from the Democrats the first chance they got, in 2010. They followed that up by taking the Senate away from Democrats in 2014. How much say and how loud do the American people have to speak before Republicans such as Sen. Mitch McConnell, Sen. Heller and Rep. Joe Heck get it?
Republicans have been voted control of Congress, and in this case in particular the Senate, to block President Barack Obama’s agenda. This is a classic example of our brilliant political system at work. The executive proposes, but the legislative disposes.
Of course the president should nominate, and the Republicans should reject the choice. Then, let the 2016 election be a national referendum on the question of whether the American people want Mr. Obama’s real legacy to be 30 years or more of his and the Democratic Party’s philosophical domination of the Supreme Court.
Knight Allen
Las Vegas
Boycott The Donald
Donald Trump would like us to boycott Apple until such time as the company unlocks the cellphone of one of the San Bernardino terrorists (“Trump Calls for Apple Boycott,” Saturday Review-Journal). How about we boycott The Donald until such time as he “makes America great again” by honoring his pledge to bring back jobs to America? Mr. Trump should close the clothing factories he uses to manufacture his ties and shirts in China and Bangladesh, and brings those jobs back to America.
Michael Ollins
Las Vegas
Sanders’ White House
Regarding Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Democratic presidential campaign, I do not feel the Bern. Do we really want a president who will be 75 by the time he enters office? I am 78 years old and know some of my faculties have diminished over the years. His will, too.
John Fronk
Pahrump
