Columnist Jeff German: This is how GOP rewards governor

Friday, Jan. 24, 2003 | 4:17 a.m.

LACKING compassion, shortsighted, insensitive, out of touch with reality.

You probably could find a thousand more unflattering ways to describe the Clark County Republican Party's resolution last week opposing Gov. Kenny Guinn's call for $1 billion in tax increases to bail the state out of its economic troubles.

The local central committee voted to urge Republican lawmakers to oppose any "major" tax increases at the 2003 Legislature in a direct snub of the most popular Republican governor since Paul Laxalt left office in 1971.

This is the governor that led Republicans to a sweep of all six constitutional offices last November. And this is how his party rewards him.

The resolution, sponsored by ultra conservative Dan Burdish, a onetime party leader, says the opposition is a matter of principle -- because the GOP is "traditionally the party of limited taxation and limited government."

It tells us that local Republicans are ignorant and have no vision for this state, which desperately needs to broaden its tax base to maintain a reasonable quality of life for its residents.

Can you imagine what Abraham Lincoln, the GOP's first president, would have to say about this resolution?

He would be the first to repudiate the local Republicans and walk arm-and-arm with Guinn to the Legislature to push the governor's plan for Nevada.

Lincoln, the man who freed the slaves and saved the Union, would give local Republicans a stern lecture on humanity.

Don't we have an obligation, he would ask, to help those who can't help themselves?

Where's the humanity in eliminating a program, such as Nevada Check Up, which provides medical insurance to 25,000 children of low-income parents?

Where's the humanity in killing the governor's plan to build a 150-bed hospital to care for the mentally ill?

And where's the humanity in closing down the drug courts in Las Vegas and Reno -- programs that give non-violent drug abusers a chance to seek treatment rather than spend time clogging up our prisons?

Lincoln would ask whether we want to deny thousands of senior citizens an opportunity to get the prescription medication they need.

Or whether we want our children to go to school without textbooks and sit elbow-to-elbow in class fighting for a teacher's attention.

Lincoln would tell Republicans who have a conscience to answer no to those questions. He would tell them to unite around Guinn, not fight him, as the governor strives to keep Nevada afloat.

It was clear that Lincoln was on Guinn's mind last Monday, as he forcefully delivered his State of the State address in the Assembly under a picture of the 16th president.

"The popularity of my proposal is less important to me than the rightness of our course," Guinn told lawmakers.

The governor went on to point out that he believed Nevadans (except for a few narrow-minded members of his own party) are compassionate and willing to embrace change to provide our children with a better future.

No one likes to pay more taxes. But sometimes you have to do things you don't like to do.

Guinn, who belongs to the "party of limited taxation and limited government," certainly would have preferred not to utter the "T-word" two-dozen times during his speech.

But he did what he felt he had to do.

And now we have to do what we have to do, and that's contribute more to the pot to preserve what we like about Nevada.

Shame on local Republicans for preaching an abdication of that responsibility. Shame on them for not having any vision for this state.

Most of all, shame on them for lacking compassion and being shortsighted, insensitive and out of touch with reality.