Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Budget Suites founder behind anti-tax ad blitz

Millionaire Las Vegas businessman Robert Bigelow's anti-tax newspaper ads are being criticized as inaccurate and misleading, but they may also be effective.

Bigelow, founder of the Budget Suites of America hotel chain and Bigelow Aerospace in North Las Vegas, has already spent roughly $50,000 on full-page ads that have run in the Las Vegas Sun and Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The latest full-page ads, which began running Sunday, encouraged the public to participate in a rally Wednesday in Carson City, when the Nevada Legislature will convene its second special session this year in an attempt to resolve a deadlock over proposed new taxes.

The Nevada Republican Liberty Caucus is covering the cost of buses to take people to Carson City for Wednesday's rally, organizers of the trip said. Dan Burdish, an anti-tax activist, is coordinating the bus trip from Las Vegas. The buses will be leaving at 6 a.m. from the Krispy Kreme parking lot next to the Wal-Mart along Rainbow Boulevard at Spring Mountain Road.

Bigelow, who rarely gives interviews to the media, could not be reached for comment Monday but instead released a statement on his tax position.

"In these times, Nevada doesn't need a vast menu of large new programs and irresponsible increases for existing ones that leave Nevadans burdened with new taxes never before imposed and with no provision for elimination," Bigelow stated. "The governor is wrong. In my opinion, the governor has acted very irresponsibly."

A secretary for Bigelow referred calls to Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, and Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, who have demanded separate votes on taxes and education. Hettrick did not return repeated telephone calls seeking comment but Beers said he spoke to Bigelow within the past week about the tax debate.

"Mr. Bigelow is a very concerned citizen who doesn't want the scope of state government to expand by 35 percent," Beers said. "My impression is that he thinks it is bad for Nevada to have a large conversion from the private sector to the public sector."

Beers said he had no idea how many people would attend the rally but said its organizers included Clark and Nye County Republican officials as well as other activists who oppose tax increases. Though the bulk of the organizing is coming from Republicans, Beers said he believes some Democrats also will participate.

Bigelow's ads stated that Gov. Kenny Guinn and Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, "are trying to pull the wool over your eyes" and that taxes are not about education.

Guinn spokesman Greg Bortolin had a different take.

"Gov. Guinn's budget is all about education and the governor firmly believes that anyone who says otherwise is simply not telling the truth," Bortolin said. "I don't understand the motivation of these ads.

"The governor's tax plan is based on big business and big gaming paying their way. Many big businesses in this state, to their credit, have stepped up and recognized the need to fund education. Perhaps someone in big business here doesn't want to pay their share."

The ad also urges Perkins to allow the Nevada Legislature to vote on the state's kindergarten through 12th grade budget separately from the vote on taxes "like the Senate, and every legislature before this one, has done."

Perkins said, though, that the Legislative Counsel Bureau issued a legal opinion stating that the Legislature could not pass an education budget without a guarantee that the funding would be there to support the schools.

"We can only separate the bill if there is a reasonable assurance that we can provide the funding," Perkins said. "We would have to pass the tax bill first."

Other Bigelow ads, which ran earlier this month, questioned why the state budget would increase by 32 percent over the next two years while the population is expected to grow only 6 percent. Guinn argued that the ads were misleading because he said the number of people who use state services is growing at a much faster pace than the general population.

"Mr. Bigelow has put as much research in his latest ad as in his last one because we have an opinion from the Legislative Counsel Bureau that says we can't do what he wants," Perkins said.

The Nevada Faculty Alliance this week ran its own ads to counter what they call a disinformation campaign that could potentially have devastating effects on higher education funding.

Bigelow's ads earlier this month alleged that the University and Community College System of Nevada's budget has been fattened by 45 percent for the 2003-2005 biennium.

Educators with the alliance counter that the university system's budget will only increase by 24 percent and have taken out their own statewide ad campaign to set the record straight before any damage is done.

"We've never run an ad like this before but these are unusual times, to put it mildly," said Jim Richardson, NFA's legislative representative.

University system officials see this as a pivotal battle to secure enough funding to increase the state's go-to-college rate and create a more educated workforce. Bigelow and lawmakers such as Beers see it as a battle to keep Nevadans from unnecessarily paying more taxes.

Monday's Nevada Faculty Alliance ad said the 24 percent budget increase will pay for a 19.7 percent increase in enrollment and the skyrocketing cost of health care and utilities.

Beers said Bigelow may have had the wrong figure for the system's budget increase, but the budget is still larger than needed.

"If he overestimated the university's funding increase -- oh well," Beers said. "The university system is still getting a larger funding increase than Nevada is going to grow by."

Beers said that the university system will realize a 34 percent increase but did not elaborate on how that number was derived.

The university system was given $717.4 million in general fund appropriations for the 2001-2003 budget cycle. That number was increased 37 percent, to $987.8 million, for 2003-2005. But university system officials say that increase is offset by the loss of $89.2 million in estate tax revenue, making the net increase about 25 percent.

State agencies are having to justify all of their expenses to legislators who hold the ultimate power over whether a program within the university system stays or goes.

Even though Bigelow's ad about the budget appeared nearly two weeks ago, Chancellor Jane Nichols says she is still dealing with the effects.

"We continue to hear (Bigelow's) figure from legislators even though we have sent them the correct information," Nichols, Nevada's higher education chancellor. "So, we have not yet been able to overcome the damage that has been done by putting out that erroneous information."

In the past, Bigelow has had supporters in the community beyond Republican lawmakers. He has benefitted from tax abatements, but he has also donated millions to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Bigelow Aerospace, his company that aims to develop a less expensive version of the space station for commercial use, received $27,850 in abated sales and business taxes from the Nevada Commission on Economic Development in 2000 to produce prototype parts for large aerospace companies. Last year, the company was among more than 25 new businesses that were honored by Guinn and Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt. Bigelow's company was honored for developing a new manned spacecraft.

North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon, who spoke to Bigelow last month, said the businessman expressed concern about possible new state business taxes. Montandon recalled Bigelow saying that new business taxes would discourage other high-tech companies from coming to Nevada.

"His main objection would be along the lines of a net income or gross receipts tax," Montandon said. "He's looking at bringing high-paying jobs to Nevada and feels that the state is trying to set up a tax climate that isn't conducive to that."

Bigelow, a Nevada native, formed the National Institute for Discovery Science in 1996 and donated $3.7 million to UNLV in 1997 to fund a new academic position in the College of Sciences. A physics building on campus is also named after him.

"He's a very passionate, principled guy," Montandon said. "He has a real vision for things he wants to accomplish with his aerospace company. He has brought one of the most high-tech businesses to North Las Vegas."

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