Margins tax isn’t even marginally a good idea

When you have to intentionally and misleadingly misname a legislative or public policy initiative to make it more palatable to the citizenry, you just know it’s a bad idea. Case in point: the horribly misnamed Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

As we all know now, the president’s government takeover of our health insurance industry has been anything but “affordable” for millions of Americans who not only have seen their premiums skyrocket, but have lost entirely the health care plans they were told they could keep if they liked them.

Ditto here in Nevada with the misleadingly named stink pickle called the Education Initiative. The initiative is, in reality, a gross receipts business income tax that will suck millions of dollars out of the private economy and dump it into that cold, black hole known as “public education.” If approved, this “margins tax” will sock it to family-owned restaurants, medical clinics, day care centers, repair shops, veterinarians, janitorial services, ranches and farms.

It’ll also hammer the gaming and construction industries, which is why organized labor — led by the AFL-CIO and Culinary unions — is now adamantly opposed. In fact, the teachers union, which will benefit directly from this ginormous tax hike, is the only major union still supporting the measure.

This tax is so bad in so many ways, it’s hard to know where to start. But let’s begin with the fact that it will slam many businesses that don’t even make a profit. Indeed, it could very well put many businesses out of business. What a way to create jobs, huh? Worse, the revenue that’ll be sucked out of these businesses will be earmarked for the public schools, as if more money is the answer to these failure factories.

While we’re here, how about we expose this “big lie” about our schools stinking on ice because we’re “underfunding education” and all we need to do is throw more good money after bad. Did you know that the worst of the worst of our public schools — usually in low-income, minority areas where a quality education is the ticket out of poverty — get a ton of extra money that the average schools don’t get? I’ve heard that some of these schools are getting double the per-pupil funding. Has all that extra money improved the academic performance of the poor students trapped in those government indoctrination centers? If only.

Let’s face it, the Education Initiative isn’t about improving education. It’s about improving the paychecks of the teachers union, which is singularly responsible for blocking true and much-needed education reforms that would actually, you know, improve education.

Wanna do something to really fix our schools? Ban the teachers union for the next 100 years. Improvement would begin the very next day.

So let it be written; so let it be done.

Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, a conservative grass-roots advocacy organization. He can be reached at www.muthstruths.com.