Editorial: Still time to avoid a tax fiasco

Wednesday, June 25, 2003 | 9:02 a.m.

It was appropriate during the regular 120-day session of the Legislature to debate the merits of increasing the state budget by $1.2 billion. It was also appropriate during the regular session to debate the issue of tying the K-12 education budget to a tax increase package of $870 million. But what is the use now, as the Legislature enters a second special session, of continuing that debate? By healthy majority votes, the Legislature passed the overall budget and decided, logically, to link the K-12 budget to the tax measure that will pay for it. What's done is done. Should the Legislature, in just the few days of a special session, undo critical legislation that took four months to pass? We believe the votes of the majority of legislators should stand on those issues.

In the second special session that began today, however, a minority of mostly Republican legislators say differently. They want the budget reopened so they can impose their will on the majority and slash programs for students, state workers and poor people. And they want the K-12 budget separated from the tax increases, so they can boast that they support education while slashing the tax increases that are necessary to pay for it. Because it takes a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Legislature to pass tax increases, they have the power to make unreasonable demands and they are not hesitant in using it. We believe Gov. Kenny Guinn should remain committed to what he told the Sun's Erin Neff, when she asked if reopening the budget was a possibility. "Absolutely not," he said.

Republican legislators point to a one-month decrease in the state's welfare caseload as reason enough to slash spending in that program. They should be looking at the total over the past two years in the numbers of people receiving welfare, Medicaid and food stamps. The decrease from March to April might mean the surge has now leveled off, but that's all it might mean. There is still an increased need that requires more funding, not less. Republicans suggest eliminating a program to begin refilling Nevada's "rainy day" contingency account, which was drained earlier this year to minimize the amount of necessary new tax revenue. Not replenishing this fund would be a dangerous gamble in this time of a slumping national economy. They talk of cutting money for higher education, at a time when the state's growing population is bulging the enrollments. They ta rget contributions to the state's retirement account for public employees, who haven't gotten a decent raise in memory. And! Republicans are railing against the hiring of new state employees, most of whom are needed to shore up the state's woefully understaffed programs for youths, mentally ill people and those whose incomes are at or below the poverty level.

The minority legislators, particularly Assembly Republicans, were uncompromising in their rejection of tax plans that would nick big businesses -- many with headquarters out of state -- for a modest amount. The plans, including one by Gov. Guinn, were aimed solely at helping this state catch up with the rest of the country when it comes to education, health care and other services. Rather than serve a majority of Nevadans by compromising on a reasonable tax plan, the minority legislators forced a stalemate in the regular session and during the first special session.

As the second session unfolds, we can only hope that the holdouts will understand the harm that continued obstinacy will do to the people they were elected to represent. There can be no reopening of the budget without grave consequences to the state. There can be no separating education from the money it needs to function. If the holdouts want to argue passionately for a smaller tax increase, that's their privilege. But Monday is the last day of the 2002-2003 fiscal year, the last day for a spending plan to pass without throwing the school system into crisis mode. If that day comes and there is still no agreement, it will be obvious the minority legislators are holding out because they are more proud of their own standing among the anti-tax clique than they are of the state.