Columnist Jon Ralston: A sound tax policy would be capital idea

Wednesday, May 2, 2001 | 9:04 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the public affairs program "Face to Face" on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the Ralston Report. His column for the Sun appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or through e-mail at ralston@ vegas.com

SO THE BUDGET gap is only $121.5 million?

That's a relief. For a moment, there, I thought the state might be in trouble.

After the Economic Forum threw its dart at the same board that other fiscal analysts had been doing for weeks, and happened to hit a number slightly lower than Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio's projected $135 million, this is a cause for celebration?

This is like the family that gathers around the relative in the hospital for a group hug after the doctor declares: "Good news. You don't have a brain tumor, after all. It's only lung cancer."

Don't miss what's happening here, folks. Beyond the biennial fiscal follies orchestrated by the powers that be in the state capital, where revenues are jiggered and the forum sits by mostly mutely, the state's finances are in a shambles. And the worst sin of all is this: Everyone up there knows it.

Gov. Kenny Guinn knows it -- but he won't do anything, partly because he doesn't think the economic conditions are right to fix it and too much because some paranoid political advisers have turned the Man Who Wants to Do The Right Thing into a member of the phylum Cnidaria.

The Gang of 63 knows it -- but while some have concocted tax plans of varying utility, most would rather cower for a month and then run: first for home, and then for re-election after they have protected their jobs through reapportionment.

And most of the special interests know it, too -- not just teachers angling for more money or education advocates trying to improve their systems, but even most business types know that the fastest-growing state in the country should not be making cuts in its budget.

Oh, yes, I know the conservative rant: We're spending too much and besides, we're not really cutting, we're reducing the amount of the increase.

Well, guess what?

They're right. So far as it goes. And that's not very far.

Any fair evaluation of spending on education -- lower and higher -- will reveal that Nevada is locked in a time warp somewhere in the last millennium. Not only does the state always fare poorly in any reasonable indices of education, health care and social service spending, but the way the state raises money no longer makes any sense.

And they all know that, too, in Carson City. Lawmakers as disparate ideologically as Democratic Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani and GOP state Sen. Ann O'Connell lamented last week that the state has no tax policy, that it careens from one session to another with short-term fixes and no deliberation about the broader concerns.

The lack of attention to how the state has relied too heavily on gaming and sales taxes for too long is a microcosm of the legislative process itself:

Not enough time for deep thoughts, so let's get in and get out as quickly as possible, doing the least damage -- to themselves, that is.

So instead of hearing about how the tax structure should be stabilized and how money should be infused into education, health care and building needed public works projects, the sounds emanating from the capital are almost surreal. Guinn and the gang have sent the message to the university folks to eviscerate their budgets, which may include layoffs, while declaring intact those ridiculous 5 percent teacher bonuses (put in the budget instead of pay increases). And imagine how students at UNLV, UNR and the community colleges must feel hearing that they have to suffer while lawmakers and Guinn, apparently floating above reality, continue to devour that pie in the sky called Henderson State College.

Even if you don't agree that the state needs more money, and even if you dissent to the proposition that the tax structure needs another piece to ensure long-term financial health, that shouldn't stop you from being disgusted with the sham being perpetrated in Carson City. The only reason the governor and the gang are looking to cut needed programs or cobble together some half-baked tax plan to fill in the hole is because they are afraid of the collateral political damage. That is what is happening now in its elemental form.

On second thought, that analogy about the doctor delivering the news isn't quite right. The governor and the gang are more like the emergency room physician who comes upon a patient bleeding from a gaping wound to his belly and tells him: "Don't worry, sir. We'll put a bandage on that and send you home right away. You're fine."