Editorial: Just more games from Hettrick

Wednesday, July 9, 2003 | 9:01 a.m.

Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick says he has prepared a list of cuts to state government spending that could reduce the amount of taxes needed to balance the state budget. But for more than two weeks now the leader of Assembly Republicans has refused to make the list public. On June 24 Hettrick told the Sun's Cy Ryan that he didn't want critics to "take pot shots at it."

On Monday Hettrick showed some leg by letting a reporter from KLAS Channel 8 look at the list, but Hettrick refused to let him make a copy of it, forcing the reporter to commit key sections to memory. Proposed reductions included cuts to the university system and a prescription drug program for seniors. Draining the state's rainy day fund also is under consideration.

Hettrick says he's made the list of cuts available to other legislators, but as of Tuesday he still hadn't shared the list with Gov. Kenny Guinn. Here we are, more than a month after the regular session of the Legislature officially has adjourned -- with the state getting deeper and deeper into a fiscal crisis -- and the top Republican in the Assembly is playing hide and seek.

One of the biggest cuts that the Assembly Republicans have mentioned is tapping the $30 million that Guinn wants to put into in the state's currently empty rainy day fund. But if that were to happen and a catastrophic emergency were to occur, such as a wildfire in rural Nevada, the state would find itself in a terrible fix.

The state's excellent bond rating also could be jeopardized if Wall Street became skittish about the state's fiscal stability because of the lack of a rainy day fund. If Nevada's debt rating tumbles it could cost taxpayers millions of dollars more because the cost for bonds to fund major capital improvement projects would increase. State Treasurer Brian Krolicki, a Republican, has said cutting the rainy day fund could be penny-wise and pound-foolish. The Assembly Republicans should listen to this fiscal conservative.

If Hettrick and the other 14 Assembly Republicans opposed to the tax plan were serious about reaching a compromise, they would detail what cuts they're talking about. But they fear that the cuts would be criticized, much in the way that they've criticized the tax-hike package, which has received 64 percent support in the Assembly, just shy of the two-thirds necessary for passage.

But the last time we looked, that's what a democracy is all about -- a robust exchange of ideas. Instead all we get from the Assembly Republicans is secrecy and partisan gamesmanship. That's because they know that their plans, once shown the light of day, would wilt under public scrutiny.