Columnist Jon Ralston: Taxes — the untouchable topic

Friday, May 4, 2001 | 4:11 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 by e-mail at ralston@vegas.com

Way up North in the land of the setting sun, where the air blows hot and empty, there's a grotesque spot, just the only one, that means home sweet home to me.

If you follow the old Bob Miller trail, until the gang runs for the hills, oh you certainly will agree with me, it's the place of a thousand chills.

With apologies -- sincerely felt -- to Bertha Raffetto, this should be the new state song: "Home Means Nevada, Home Means Run for the Hills."

One of the few members of the Gang of 64 -- lawmakers plus Gov. Kenny Guinn -- not trying to run out the clock and hide, state Sen. Mark James, put it best last week to describe the sad spectacle now occurring in Carson City.

James, who has alienated his colleagues by publicly railing about the need for new revenue in the fastest-growing state in the country, said that no one with an elected title is telling him he is wrong. On the contrary, they are whispering that he is right. But they nevertheless have a simple message for him: "Shut up."

James is one of the few to interrupt the conspiracy of silence by the gang that can't count straight. He has proposed a melange of new tax sources -- some of them provocative, some of them Band-Aids, some of them dumb -- just to cause the discussion to occur in the light and not in hushed conversations out of media earshot.

And although it may be politically risky for James to keep opening his ever-ready yap, he also sees something that few can discern: It might be politically stupid to wait until after the session to start the discussion.

Or, more accurately, after the next election cycle passes. James said he believes that parents and others are ready for what he called a "revolution" if the lawmakers don't act -- one that will be felt at the ballot in November 2002.

The obscene behavior and disingenuous bloviating reached a nadir at the end of last week that was exemplified by three different, dissonant headlines in one day -- one touting Guinn serendipitously discovering enough money to give $2,000 bonuses to incoming teachers, one talking about the $38 million in higher education cuts and another about the penurious Chamber of Commerce endorsing state employee raises.

So this is the state where teachers can't get paid a fair wage but can get minuscule bonuses, where the university system is gutted but a state college proposal gets $26 million and where state employees get raises but layoffs loom because of budget cuts. "Home Means Nevada, Home Means Run for the Hills."

On Monday, one day before economic forecasters settled on $121.5 million as the size of a budget deficit, the governor declared, "There wouldn't be any cuts in education." That came a few days after Guinn privately had informed university officials they would have to slash almost $40 million from their budgets -- see, the governor or lawmakers aren't doing the cutting, the university types are. I get it.

Guinn and legislators are trying to lay off the university cuts, which officials say will result in layoffs and a loss of student services, on the difference in projected enrollment figures and actual numbers. But that is pure spin -- those differences were fixed months ago.

But that's just an isolated example of the games being played with the future of the state. They can sneer all they want about this being the legacy of Miller, Guinn's predecessor, who should have started the tax structure, resisting during his last session in 1997. But that's history.

And what is so otherworldly about this is that James, a Republican, is the loudest dissenting voice on this topic. The Democrats in Carson can talk the talk, but they won't walk the walk. James will -- he is advocating higher taxes, even if he's not sure which one will work. All the Democrats have are some rhetorical palaver and a bill that asks for more education funding but won't say how it should be done.

And so they wait. For special interests to, as is their wont, substitute themselves for policymakers and present a tax plan. Or, more likely, they wait for June 4, having drawn themselves safe new districts, to go on vacation. But they already have taken a trip to escape reality.

This -- and I am contrite once again, Ms. Raffetto -- is how the song now should end:

Out by the capital, cowardice reigns, out where the sun of truth never shines, here is the place which I hate the best, uglier than all I can see.

Deep in the heart of political darkness, Home Means Nevada to me.