My husband and I truly enjoy living in Las Vegas (even considering the summer heat). We like the region’s natural beauty. We like the better-than-normal offerings in dining, shopping and entertainment. We love our jobs. But we cannot see ourselves retiring in Nevada.
Over the past 15 years we have lived in several other states, and we have considered retiring in each of them. California, with its bountiful opportunities, has simply become too costly for future retirees. (In fact, we’ve joked that Nevada’s new state motto should be “At Least It’s Not California.”)
Nebraska was nice, and we made some lifelong friends there, but it’s just too cold in the winter. Ohio’s economy is suffering greatly from the auto industry’s decline — and it’s too cold.
Texas remains a strong probability. Houston has the best medical care in the country, and except for its property taxes, it’s a relatively low-tax state with two of the best public universities in the nation and one of the best private universities (of which I am an alumna).
Houston also has great restaurants and shopping, a world-class opera, a wonderful ballet and symphony, more variety in movies, and something that we miss more each day: good half-price book stores. Of course, Houston also has hurricanes, tropical storms, mosquitoes and humidity, so it’s far from perfect.
Also in stark contrast to what we’ve found during the two years my husband and I have lived in Nevada, Texas has invested in an infrastructure for its citizens. People (even poor people) have access to health care and a decent education. And it’s no coincidence that Texas’ diverse economy is doing much better than ours here in Nevada, which relies upon gaming for its lifeblood.
Last week Gov. Jim Gibbons suggested that state employees should lose 16 percent of their salaries, in lieu of layoffs and in lieu of raising taxes. Not only is the governor proposing a salary decrease, but that decrease comes in addition to dramatically increasing employee benefit costs.
The proposed Nevada Public Employees’ Benefits Program Board’s benefits cuts alone will increase individual workers’ share of benefit costs by roughly $2,000 a year and family benefit costs by roughly $3,000 a year. That means people who have dedicated their working lives to improving the state’s educational system and infrastructure — including K-12 teachers, who are already underpaid — will pay significantly more for their state benefits out of salaries that would be 16 percent lower than they were last year.
Moreover, the proposals include the elimination of state-supported health care coverage for state retirees. What will most state workers have to do to meet this new gap between salaries and needs? They’ll look for ways to replace the lost income. The lucky ones will find second jobs.
The unlucky ones? I have no idea how the lowest-paid state workers are going to make ends meet. Some will leave the state to look for jobs elsewhere; expect to see more bankruptcy filings and foreclosures in the next few years.
The governor’s idea of a “tax holiday” comes at the worst possible time for Nevada. He’s correct in thinking that people who have been laid off can’t afford new taxes — but they’re not the ones who would likely pay those new taxes.
He’s right that small businesses should be given a break when it come to most new taxes — but he’s wrong in thinking all businesses need such a break. There are plenty of ways to spread the pain of some new taxes while keeping necessary infrastructure in our state.
When a business has a gap between what it takes in and what it shells out, it figures out how to trim costs and how to raise revenue. When humans have a gap between their salaries and their budgets, they do the same thing. The governor’s plan is all about trimming costs, but that’s only half of the equation. Where is the revenue increase to cover the shortfall?
If Nevada steadfastly refuses to maintain a decent infrastructure, which necessarily includes raising some taxes and cutting some expenses, then it’s saying the state values low taxes over a decent standard of living.
For those who came to Nevada because the government doesn’t interfere too much with its citizens, this low-tax, low-service philosophy is just fine. (I’m assuming those people are fairly self-sufficient. They don’t need to finance education, public health, or police and firefighters.)
For the rest of us, Nevada’s low-tax, low-service economy says the state values open space more than it values its citizens.
The fact is that, when my husband and I consider retirement (which is still decades away), we’re going to look for a state that has incentives to keep its doctors and nurses, so we don’t have to travel far if we have serious medical problems.
We’re going to look for a state that educates its citizens well, so the tax base (whatever it ends up being) is maintained by a trained and creative workforce. We’re going to look for a state in which some of its public employees are not so exhausted from having to moonlight that they can’t perform fully in their day jobs.
We wish that the state were Nevada, because we love it here. But unless the governor and the Legislature figure out a way to raise revenue, retiring here is simply out of the question.
Nancy B. Rapoport is the Gordon Silver Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law at UNLV. She and her husband, Jeff Van Niel, are two of the co-editors of “Enron and Other Corporate Fiascos: The Corporate Scandal Reader.”
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