Vin Suprynowicz

The “experts” seem to have overestimated the tax revenues our greedy Nevada bureaucrats will get their mitts on this year by about a billion bucks.

(What does this tell us about the folks who still believe “experts” can reliably predict global temperatures or mean sea levels 100 years from now?)

I submit three modest suggestions:

1) Dig up a couple of Nevada state budgets from 1958 and 1908. Not much need to examine the actual dollar amounts under the various headings, since the 2008 dollar is worth about 2 to 3 cents in 1908 dollars. (But the inflation rate is only 2.2 percent; I heard it from a government “expert” so I know it’s true.)

Instead, just compare the headings with this year’s proposed budget — the names of the state departments, divisions, offices, and programs. Cross out any headings from the 2008 budget that did not appear in the 1958 budget. After all, Nevada was a relatively happy and prosperous place in 1958, wasn’t it? Do you remember anyone back in 1958 squawking that Nevada “didn’t have enough government”?

Zero out the budgets of all the departments, divisions, offices, and programs you’ve just crossed out. Close them. Auction off their buildings and equipment.

Now take 10 percent of the money you just saved and allocate it to the office of the state Attorney General, with instructions to use it to pro-actively sue the federal government in the U.S. Supreme Court under the 10th Amendment, demanding that the federal government be barred from using any means whatever to buffalo us into restoring any of that unnecessary, unwanted, and harmful spending, or (failing that) that the court at least order the federals to pay the costs of any restored programs in full.

Since Nevada state attorney generals have been known to lie in the past, insisting they would cite the 10th Amendment as a grounds for, say, opposing the Yucca Mountain federal nuclear waste dump, whereupon it turns out they kind of, you know, left it out, Ms. Cortez Masto must be specifically instructed to begin her lawsuit with the words, “This lawsuit is based upon the 10th Amendment; we demand the federal government be instructed to respect Nevada’s pre-eminence and sovereignty in all matters where federal sovereignty and pre-eminence are not specifically delegated and empowered by the actual words of the U.S. Constitution, as stipulated in the 10th Amendment, without which the whole deal is off.”

If that doesn’t get spending back within current cash flow, repeat the process, using the 1908 budget.

For the record, once again, I don’t believe the government schools can be “reformed,” since they’re producing a dumbed down peasant class trained to jeer in unison, eagerly ridiculing the objections of the still-awake remnant (“citing the words of dead white slave owners!”) as the G-men systematically strip away our liberties “for our own protection” — precisely as these schools were designed to.

America will steadily lose its position of world leadership in one domain after another till the government schools are abandoned and we go back to the system of allowing parents to provide for their own children’s education which prevailed pretty much through the Civil War.

(Yes, slaves were an unfortunate exception. I have a firm position on slavery. I’m against it. Those who favor a personal income tax and mandatory government schooling may want to keep in mind that they’re actually endorsing forms of slavery and involuntary servitude, “for their own good, and the good of the great collective” — pretty much the same justification slavers have always used.)

But if the governor is really looking for some big savings, here are two more solutions he could try, answering those who argue that mere “across-the-board” cuts show a lack of “vision” and “leadership”:

2) If you harbor and give aid and comfort to a culprit who any reasonable person would suspect of being a lawbreaker, you’re an “accessory after the fact.” No one is authorized to use our tax money to commit this crime. Start demanding proof of legal residency for all children enrolling in Nevada’s government schools. The schools are a huge drain on state revenues; this single step could reduce that cost by 20 percent or more. Those who seek to help these children should be encouraged to endow scholarships for them at private schools … in their home countries.

3) After children in Nevada’s government schools complete the second grade, test them on the basic academics needed to do third grade work. Also test to see if they’re qualified to move on to the fourth or fifth grade.

Promote those who pass. Allow those who have mastered higher level material to skip ahead as much as two grades. Those who fail must be held back to repeat the second grade. Warn their parents that if they can’t master the material after a second year, they’ll be expelled: “You cannot be allowed to impede the progress of those who are willing and able to apply themselves. You’ve used up your chance at a free tax-funded education; we wish you luck elsewhere.”

Repeat at the end of each year.

After the eighth grade, any child whose test results (on real academic subjects, not Politically Correct gibberish) show reasonable potential to complete a college preparatory course may advance to high school. Those whose grades and test scores fall into a “maybe” range get to choose for themselves. Those whose grades and scores say “No way” get diverted into a two-year course of vocational skill-building designed to help them choose and qualify as apprentices in any of a number of respectable blue-collar trades.

A small percentage of children, determining that they can earn their freedom in as little as six years, will apply themselves, pass their high school graduation exams at 12 or 13, and receive their diplomas. The taxpayers will have saved 50 percent of the cost of their schooling, and the kids — still bright and eager — will not have been bogged down in a stultifying morass, marking time as teachers fruitlessly cajole the sluggards to stop goofing around and catch up.

The size of Nevada’s high school classes would likely be reduced by half, at a vast financial savings, meantime setting college preparatory students free to once again advance academically at a rate comparable to students in the rest of the developed world. A Nevada high school diploma would actually be worth something.

Far from being a radical proposal, this would match educational practice in most of this country before 1950 — and in most of the developed world, to this day — though with the improvement that discrimination against girls and racial minorities would be eliminated.

Do I believe this could be accomplished?

No. First, it would require fighting and prevailing in court against families who contend their offspring have a “right” to promotion and a diploma for little more than wasting everyone’s time.

But more importantly, there’s still that “compulsion” problem. Those who come forward voluntarily to seek a tutor can learn with amazing speed. The process is gratifying for all. But mandatory government propaganda camps with police, truant officers, metal detectors and chain-link fences are a very different type of enterprise — one which can only create generations of angry, disgruntled sociopaths.

Besides, who would squawk loudest at this modest proposal? The very educrats who complain about not being able to focus on their academic lessons under the current madhouse regime. Heavens, “holding kids back” would devastate their precious “self-esteem”! And allowing hard-working kids to “skip ahead” would be devastating to all the educrats’ carefully crafted schemes of “socialization”!

Funny. Given how quickly “socialization” always trumps “allowing” kids to master the academic basics as briskly as possible, you have to wonder why the teachers’ union isn’t called the “Nevada State Socialization Association”; why the biennial allocation to fund the government schools isn’t called the “Socialization Funding Bill”; why Gov. Gibbons doesn’t proudly proclaim himself “The Socialization Governor.”

Besides, how shall we measure how much better the current government school system is doing at “socializing” kids, compared to the American school system of 1908 or 1858 — or, for that matter, to today’s private schools and home schoolers? The rates at which their respective inmates find themselves arrested and charged in firearm rampages and drive-by shootings?

Shall we really start counting?