Jobs
Your Job is in Danger!
Joblessness and underemployment is one of the biggest challenges facing Nevada. In order to match our pre-recession employment rate, our state needs to create over 100,000 new jobs--and that doesn’t include decreases in workforce participation, and people whose jobs have lost value or hours. Nevada needs a plan to diversify our industries and encourage new businesses to move here. The only proven way to increase employment while raising living standards across the board is to reduce structural unemployment caused by bureaucracy and harmful intervention from city, county, state and federal governments. We also believe encouraging entrepreneurism through small businesses by lowering barriers to entry will lead to immediate job creation and opportunity.
Reducing the size and scope of government is the best way to improve the job market. Government cannot allocate resources as effectively as market forces, so even programs explicitly designed to reduce unemployment are likely to be counter-productive. Government jobs and corporate welfare persist only at the expense of private sector jobs. The result is less private sector investment, less opportunity, and a poor environment for business. Reducing the barriers to employment erected by government includes lowering taxes, reducing or eliminating business license requirements, allowing easier access to capital, and scaling back harmful, crippling, or expensive regulation. In the aftermath of the recession, the Local, State, and Federal governments have spent countless sums on public works and "stimulus," yet there are 60,000 fewer jobs in Las Vegas. Since 2009, with Senator Harry Reid's backing, over $1.3 billion in federal taxpayer subsidies has gone into renewable-energy contracts in Nevada. Yet the projects those subsidies fund are projected to create only 288 permanent jobs in the state. This failed jobs plan cost taxpayers $4.6 million per job!