By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org
    
CARSON CITY, Nev. – The government class is at it again.
    
Nevada’s teachers union is throwing its weight and resources behind a new business tax initiative to prop up sagging school budgets.
    
The Nevada State Education Association and its Big Labor brethren want to take 2 percent from the first 70 percent of a business’ total revenue, reports the Las Vegas Sun. The government class would then funnel that money – estimated at $800 million annually – into the state’s public education system.
    
The coalition filed its plan with the secretary of state’s office on Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.
    
The tax is being sold as a means to rescue the state’s “underfunded” schools, which is another way of saying it’s “for the children.”
    
And in union-speak, “for the children” really means “for our members,” as in higher salaries and more expensive benefits.
    
Got it? Good. Let’s move on.
    
The Great Recession hurt Nevada more than any other state, leaving thousands of residents unemployed or underemployed and school districts with shrunken or stagnant budgets. Despite that, many districts could weather the tough times by delaying nonessential purchases, temporarily freezing employee wages and making some common sense cuts –the government equivalent to eating bologna sandwiches for a while.
    
But union collective bargaining contracts force school districts to spend their money on expensive fringe benefits like automatic annual “step” pay raises and free health insurance for employees.
    
Many union contracts also stipulate that districts cover their own share and the teachers’ share of state pension payments, a huge extra expense for cash-strapped schools. Unsurprisingly, there’s not enough money left over for the classroom, which forces district officials to lay off younger teachers, increase class sizes and cut student programs.
    
The unions willfully ignore the vicious circle they have created, and choose instead to whine that schools are “underfunded.” Instead of shouldering more of their own health and pension costs, or agreeing to an honest-to-goodness temporary pay freeze, union employees want to shift the conversation to those “greedy” corporations.
    
It’s a tactic they’ve obviously learned from their friends in the Occupy movement.
    
The NSEA and their Big Labor pals need to collect 72,352 signatures by mid-November. If they do, it will force the 2013 Legislature to consider the new tax initiative. And if lawmakers reject the proposal, “it would automatically go to voters in 2014,” the AP reports.
    
Will Nevada’s lawmakers or voters fall for it?
    
That remains to be seen. But if they do, the teachers union will have pulled off a diversionary tactic worthy of Las Vegas’ finest magicians.