They’re sticking to the union

Any “tax break” is to the good, because it discourages the further metastasis of the state and leaves more money to be invested by the most frugal, attentive and motivated custodians available — those who actually worked to earn that money in the first place.

That said, however, taxes should be simple and uniform. Lawmakers are no more all-knowing than anyone when it comes to predicting the economic impact of the sundry exemptions and loopholes with which they strew the tax code, either cutting favors for friends or trying to “socially engineer” behaviors they can’t yet bring themselves to either ban or require.

Take Nevada’s sales tax exemption for construction materials used in “green” buildings.

It wasn’t necessary, in the first place. Anyone who pays gas and electric bills know that stuff is getting pricey. If an architect or engineer can show those building a new hotel or casino how to save money on future energy bills, they’re perfectly capable of “pencilling out” how long the improvement will take to pay for itself in reduced power bills. No legislative meddling required.

Partly for this reason, it’s by no means clear that those who have qualified for and claimed the current, sizable “green” construction tax exemption did anything kinder to the environment than they would have done anyway.

So lawmakers were back at work in Carson City this spring, seeking a way to repair their “loophole” blunder without violating Gov. Jim Gibbons’ “no new taxes” pledge. Early last week, it appeared those revisions could mean the planned Fontainebleu project on the Strip won’t qualify for the exemption, creating a $12 million “windfall” in unexpected tax revenues.

As the week wound down, and lawmakers worked to indemnify themselves against possible lawsuits, that “windfall” was no longer a sure thing.

But what’s interesting is where the delegates in Carson City immediately decided to throw those millions — assuming they ever materialize.

Bigger raises for public employees, of course — in this case, public schoolteachers.

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus said Thursday the unexpected $12 million windfall would allow for an increase in teacher pay in the first year of the budget to cover increases in retirement contributions. Teacher raises in the first year would hit 2.375 percent instead of just 2 percent.

And not even the fiscal conservatives on the other side of the aisle objected — state Sen. Bob Beers OK’d the raises (which will create a higher platform for the next round to start from) on the grounds they’re preferable to all-day kindergarten.

Needless to say, members of the teachers union immediately began complaining that this is “not enough” — failing to note that such raises pile on top of “step increases” and other quiet methods by which their paychecks are made to grow larger each year by a lot more than 2.3 percent.

Beyond that, note the ongoing effort to buffer teachers from having to actually contribute to their own retirements, as do the taxpayers who support the system — when they’re lucky enough to have any pension plan, at all.

When our spendthrift lawmakers and their union backers say they want “education first” they don’t mean your kids. They mean the members of educational industrial complex.

Legislators “find” $12 million and where does it go? Not into classroom materials or anywhere else it would directly benefit kids, but, without hesitation, to teacher pay.

The direct needs of the kids always take a back seat to those of the union.