‘Green’ building tax breaks are rip-offs

Knight Allen, Las Vegas

Thursday, April 24, 2008 | 2:01 a.m.

An editorial in Wednesday’s Las Vegas Sun, “Industry sees green,” articulates one of the greatest strengths of capitalism: its ability to adapt to and profit from changing markets.

You want green? You got it. It’s Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” working like the immutable economic principle it is.

However, capitalism, like all human enterprises, has a downside corporate welfare. We are experiencing that right now with the Nevada Corporate State and its “green” building tax breaks.

At a time when you can’t open the paper without reading about revenue shortfalls, government treasuries are losing millions to these unnecessary and totally unjustified tax breaks.

I asked a key elected official: “How much is this going to cost the taxpayers of Nevada?” The response? “Nobody knows.” How’s that for tax policy? “Nobody knows.”

We can only hope that someone will introduce a bill in the 2009 legislative session to repeal this massive rip-off of the Nevada taxpayer and chase the corporate welfare queens away from the people’s treasuries.