Columnist Jon Ralston: More tax folly from amateurs

Friday, May 16, 2003 | 6:07 a.m.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program Face to Face on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the Ralston Report. He can be reached at (702) 870-7997 or at ralston@vegas.com.

WEEKEND EDITION: May 18, 2003

CARSON CITY -- I'd like to say it's deja vu. I'd like to say now I know how veterans with flashbacks feel. I'd like to say it looks like one of those sequels with the same plot but slightly altered special effects.

But all I can say as The Rush To Close begins, with the same sort of short-term thinking, ludicrous posturing and inane one-upsmanship that has characterized past sessions, is: Please, not again.

How else to feel after what the Senate Taxation Committee did last week. See if this makes sense to you: A Republican-controlled panel was first to pass the largest tax increase in history (and they may add to the $730 million this week) by taxing everyone in the state except Big Business, including a sales tax on services that affects nearly everyone. This, only a few hours after Gov. Kenny Guinn said during a "Face to Face" taping that he would veto any sales tax on services -- a declaration that had flashed through the building by the time the panel voted.

So how can anyone believe anything other than these folks just care about announcing (again) that they are relevant, that they don't kowtow to leadership, that they don't like the lame-duck governor who put them in this position? In trying to declare themselves relevant so many times, they have rendered themselves irrelevant and trivialized a process that isn't even remotely deliberative.

This hodgepodge has no coherence, no policy underpinnings, no long-term stability. And it has no chance to pass. I hope.

Alas, I fear this may be the shape of things to come in the final fortnight -- the same hoary, Band-Aid approach to major policy questions, especially taxation. These folks have metamorphosed from putative legislators to spin doctors and they cannot heal themselves. If all they care about is sending messages to each other and to the governor, they will sacrifice long-term policy and stability for short-term political gain and self-satisfaction.

Please, not again.

So where does this leave us?

As I see it, only three scenarios are possible now. They are:

While most sentient human beings might think that a special session would be a political disaster for the entire Gang of 63, some Republicans think if they come back here and vote against taxes, it's a win for them -- and will help them take the Assembly next time. Problem is this: The GOP will not uniformly vote against taxes in a special session -- too many lawmakers already are on record closing budgets and the entire Senate Taxation Committee is now on record backing at least $730 million in new taxes.

Gov. Kenny Guinn will not allow lawmakers to skate, either. If any deal is derailed by the obstinate caucus, he will send the gang home for almost a month -- making them suffer through brutal media coverage of their inaction -- and then bring them back right before the new fiscal year begins July 1 and give them a couple of days to pass a package. Either way, then, they lose. They will have had to return to pass a billion-dollar increase. Or Guinn will shut down the government and watch the fallout.

Guinn appears as resolved as ever to get a broad-based tax solution enacted, so I think he will play this game of chicken with the Gang of 63. They don't like him; he doesn't like them. But he has all the power here -- and, as they well know, he has nothing to lose and they have everything to lose.

The real question then becomes whether the governor and the lobbying horde from gaming, mining and elsewhere can Count to 14 in the Senate, the necessary two-thirds to pass the package. The number -- $800 million to $1.2 billion -- is now less important than the mechanism because the floor was set by the Senate tax panel.

There would be lots of tweaking, lots of arm-twisting, lots of gamesmanship. But it could get done if the Gang of 63 looks toward the long term and not just at the politics of the moment. If they would remove their amateur political consultant hats and for just a short time actually wear their legislative uniforms, maybe we won't have to say what we have said for lo these past sessions:

Please, not again.