Viva Las Vegas… Almost

Michael Reagan on Apr 16, 2021

But there was no cab.

Instead of the usual line of 20 taxis waiting for riders, there was a line of 20 riders waiting for a cab, one of which would show up every three or four minutes.

It was the same inconvenient story after we ate at Ferraro's Italian Restaurant & Wine Bar. At 10 p.m. on a Friday night there were no cabs and the closest Uber was 45 minutes away.

When the owner of Ferraro’s saw us waiting, he gave us a lift back to our hotel.

On the way he explained that a huge percentage of taxi and Uber drivers - like their counterparts in other cities - initially had stopped driving last spring because 90 percent of their business was crushed by the lockdowns.

But they are still not driving because they are being paid upwards of a $1,000 a week in state and federal unemployment benefits for not working.

I don’t blame the drivers.

When I was very young my father told me what his father had told him back in the 1920s -- “Son, when the government starts paying you not to work, why work?”

When the government stops paying them so well, those off-duty Uber drivers sitting by the pool with me last week will go back to work and life will return a little closer to what passes for normal in “The City of Lost Wages.”

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Michael Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, is an author, speaker and president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation. Send comments to reagan@caglecartoons.com and follow @reaganworld on Twitter.

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