Did anybody read tax panel’s plan?

Erin Neff

Friday, July 25, 2003 | 9:23 a.m.

In about 10 years someone will probably refer to the Governor's Task Force on Tax Policy in Nevada the way current lawmakers talk about Price Waterhouse.

That's because both tax studies of the past decade were largely ignored.

In fact, Republican allegations of Democratic misconduct on the last day of the second special session are evidence that nobody read the report or even followed tax discussions for the six months of the Legislature.

Democrats held up passage of Senate Bill 8 on Monday evening because they wanted to up the increase in the liquor tax from 50 percent to 75 percent.

Assemblyman Ron Knecht, R-Carson City, alleged in another newspaper that Democrats did so to get back at Southern Nevada Wine & Spirits' owner Larry Ruvo, a Democrat who that day was hosting Vice President Dick Cheney in his Spanish Trail home.

Too bad neither Knecht nor the paper bothered with facts.

The task force recommended increasing the liquor tax 89 percent to keep up with inflation over the many years the tax lay untouched. Gov. Kenny Guinn also proposed 89 percent and Sens. Mark Amodei, R-Carson City, and Terry Care, D-Las Vegas, opted for a 100 percent hike.

The Senate Taxation Committee twice voted for a 100 percent liquor tax increase before Cheney's folks were even talking to Ruvo.

But in the waning days of negotiations the liquor tax had somehow fallen to 50 percent because the higher revenue amount wasn't needed. One of Knecht's 14 friends in the Assembly who were blocking tax increases instead had proposed cutting spending on Medicaid and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.

Care and other Democrats objected to the cut and suggested putting liquor at 75 percent -- still lower than most of the previous proposals -- to stop the cut in welfare.

Knecht lives in a world of spin, but if Republican boasting is accurate, he could soon find himself washed out of his seat.

That's because Knecht, who works at the Public Utilities Commission, is one of the rare Republican public employees serving in the Legislature. If conservatives pass a ballot initiative that would prohibit public employees from serving in Carson City, he would have to either give up the day job or the public office.

It's a shame about Ray

Nobody in Carson City wanted to vote on taxes.

After all, lawmakers who vote yes are subject to the ire of the anti-tax public, and those who vote no are subject to calls that they don't care about schools.

All 63 probably dreamed they were somewhere else -- some tropical island, fruity drink in hand and tanned bodies strolling the sandy beaches.

The only one who actually escaped was Sen. Ray Shaffer, R-North Las Vegas.

When Shaffer left the Legislative Building Sunday night he told everyone around him that he wasn't about to miss his cruise to Hawaii the next day.

When Monday came and Shaffer was missing, Republican officials were left scrambling to cover, at first saying Shaffer was in Las Vegas. When evening came and Shaffer was unavailable for the vote, the same GOP officials offered only less-than-enthusiastic "no comments" about the senator's whereabouts.

One Republican said it would not be wrong to print that Shaffer was in Hawaii.

The news ain't good for Shaffer, a recent party switcher whose district has more voters of his old Democratic party (16,777) than of his new one (11,890).

Not surprisingly, Shaffer couldn't be reached this week for comments on his whereabouts.