The Institute's guiding principle on tax and fiscal policy is that limited government and low taxation rates are the best recipe for economic prosperity. Over-taxation and excessive government regulation of economic activity are both antithetic to America's founding principles, and detrimental to economic growth. NPRI's mission on tax and fiscal policy is to advance the free-market principles that are essential to a prosperous society.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), along with former President Bill Clinton and oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens converge on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas this week for the National Clean Energy Summit.

When gas prices climbed over $4 a gallon earlier this summer, many Americans were outraged. Whether it is through government action or private solutions, citizens are demanding relief.  But the rise in fuel prices over the last four decades pales in comparison to increases in per-pupil spending on public education in America. From 1961-2007, per-pupil spending increased by 293 percent after adjusting for inflation.

Further open records requests and audits have revealed that some local governments destroy their intergovernmental lobbying records so quickly that no public account remains to reveal exactly how taxpayer dollars are spent each year.

It's easy to imagine the glee with which Nevada's ever-higher-taxes crowd must be greeting a new study from the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation, which found that Silver State residents enjoy the nation's second-lowest state and local tax burden.

An unpopular Republican governor, an increasingly deep economic funk, and a national outlook that nearly all prognosticators say greatly favors their party. Nevada Democrats couldn't have come up with a better storyline heading into the 2008 elections if they'd been allowed to write the script themselves.

The education establishment consistently bemoans Nevada's lower-than-average per-pupil spending on education.  Implicit in their constant return to this statistic is a misguided belief that spending more money on education naturally leads to better education results.

The Americans with Disabilities Act is just another government encroachment on property rights that makes us all worse off – including the disabled.

Many people think of outsourcing as a way to save on expenses by having help from outside firms that can do specialized jobs for less. When it comes to government in Nevada, however, outsourcing too often appears a way for the politically connected to pull in taxpayer dollars.

Federal laws prohibiting the drilling for fossil fuels punish no state in the union more than Nevada. Not that there is any oil or gas to drill for in the Silver State. It's just that nobody is walking or riding his bike into Las Vegas or Reno to tempt Lady Luck.