School choice and dogs in bars

One of the most exciting reforms on the agenda at the Legislature is school choice.

Proposed by Gov. Brian Sandoval, AB165 will create an Opportunity Scholarship program that will create school choice using tuition tax credits.

Here’s how that works on the technical side. Say a business owes the state $50,000 for its modified business tax. Instead of paying the state, the business makes a $50,000 donation to a scholarship-granting organization. In turn, the state gives the business a $50,000 tax credit, which the business can use to pay its tax bill.

Parents and students can then receive scholarships to attend the private school of their choice.

School choice works.

As the Friedman Foundation has found …

Twelve empirical studies have examined academic outcomes for school choice participants using random assignment, the “gold standard” of social science. Of these, 11 find that choice improves student outcomes — six found that all students benefit and five that some benefit and some are not affected. One study finds no visible impact. No empirical study has found a negative impact.

Twenty-three empirical studies (including all methods) have examined school choice’s impact on academic outcomes in public schools. Of these, 22 find that choice improves public schools and one finds no visible impact. No empirical study has found that choice harms public schools.

Six empirical studies have examined school choice’s fiscal impact on taxpayers. All six find that school choice saves money for taxpayers. No empirical study has found a negative fiscal impact.

Gone to the dogs

A bill to allow dogs in bar, sponsored by Sen. James Settelmeyer (R-Minden), may seem trivial at first, but on second look, it’s anything but.

By allowing bar owners — not the government — to decide who (or what, in this case) is allowed inside a business, Senate Bill 105 returns a fundamental right to property owners. At its core, this bill is about letting bar owners decide what’s best for their businesses based on the market they serve, not on what government commands through force.

Nevada health department officials oppose the bill, citing public safety as the reason the government must prohibit dogs from entering bars. It’s likely it was this same argument that led to the initial regulation banning dogs from bars in the first place.

But obsessively nanny government isn’t necessary to keep society safe. The market does a fine job of producing sanitary and appealing businesses on its own.

The passage of SB105 won’t result in bars becoming inundated with rabid dogs, or bar patrons receiving beverages contaminated with K9 hair. That’s because bar owners are in the business of keeping their customers, and in order to do that, those customers must be alive and happy.

If a bar owner fails to sweep his floors or wipe down counters and as a result ends up serving beer laden with Labrador hair, customers won’t return and his profits will plummet. It’s in the bar owner’s best interest to keep a clean, safe establishment, so he will do that whether he’s ordered to do so by the government or not.

Opponents of freedom perpetuate the myth that anything short of government regulation is no regulation at all. Yet, when no government law exists, society does not descend into chaos.

The Nevada Policy Research Institute is a free-market think tank that seeks private solutions to public challenges facing Nevada, the West and the nation.