COULD NEW NV LITHIUM DIVIDEND PUT  REPUBS IN POWER?

Source: New York Post

Sept, 18, 2023

The gold rush was sparked by the discovery of gold nuggets in the Sacramento Valley in early 1848. Over 100,000 would-be gold miners, known as 49ers, came to Nevada and California. The Gold Rush reshaped the western United States and helped push Congress to admit California and later Nevada into the Union as states. According to the Nevada Division of Minerals, over 5.6 million ounces of gold are mined in Nevada each year. Nevada currently produces almost 75 percent of the annual U.S. gold yield. The mining industry reported $7.8 billion in actual gross proceeds in 2019. The mining tax was just raised a couple of years ago, producing $85 million in taxes.

That is chump change compared to the recent discovery of the world’s largest lithium deposits right here in Nevada. The McDermitt Caldera may hold between 20 million and 40 million metric tons of lithium. The next largest before that was 1 million metric tons. In today’s dollars, at $37,000 per metric ton, the value of this mine is well over $1.2 trillion. We are the Saudi Arabia of lithium.

The mine, which sits on public BLM land, is a project of Lithium Nevada, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lithium Americas Corp, whose largest shareholder is the world’s largest lithium mining company, Chinese Ganfeng Lithium.

Are we going to allow the Chinese Commies to extract our riches to build their military power? I have a better idea. Republicans running for the Assembly and State Senate should run on giving every Nevadan $1k a year, just like in Alaska. It’s not welfare. It’s not socialism. The lithium is on public land and owned by the people.

In addition, Republicans should make it their policy to extract funds from the mining of lithium to provide every child with a school voucher.

They call it the Alaska Oil Dividend, and this year the payout will be $1,300 for every man, woman, and child in Alaska. Nevada politicians will be tempted to keep control over the tax revenue it produces. But a lithium dividend could keep Republicans in power for the next 20 years.