Columnist Jon Ralston: Ludicrous pandering on taxes

Friday, July 30, 2004 | 5:13 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

July 31 - Aug. 1, 2004

If we tried to tax the intellectual property being expended to solve the latest manufactured crisis, we wouldn't have to worry about runaway revenue or government windfalls.

In their never-ending quest to genuflect to obstreperous seniors, who incessantly hector quivering elected officials, politicians are warning of an apocalypse unless property taxes are capped or rolled back. But why stop there? Why not just abolish them? There's a sure ticket to re-election.

A year after the Gang of 63 dithered and ultimately withered, spending 157 days to not deliberate on tax policy and pass an ill-conceived melange, lawmakers again are looking at the small picture. Instead of considering rising real estate values and concomitantly escalating taxes as part of an entire tax tableau, they are scrambling to promise anything as they beg for votes so they can return for Carson City to dither and wither once more.

"I don't think I have heard enough people talking about the combined impact of a lot of the things out there," Guy Hobbs, the finance and tax expert, said on "Face to Face" last week. "You have one initiative petition to roll back all the taxes at the state level. You have another initiative petition to fund education to the national average which would be hundreds of millions of dollars more per year. Obviously property tax is one of the foundational elements to how we fund education in this state ... We need to best understand how all of these things might work in conjunction with one another and too often we focus on each individual one."

To his credit, Gov. Kenny Guinn resisted the call for a special session by lawmakers who would rather placate voters with a sop than have the discipline to tell them the truth. And because they have failed to correct the myopia that infected last year's sessions, they have created a toxic atmosphere where conflicting petitions can flourish in the short run and government is paralyzed in the long run.

Their political numbskullery has created irony upon irony. They fail to do their jobs in 2003 because they are afraid of angering voters. But voters are furious anyhow, whipped into a frenzy by opportunists. And so they seek redress through the initiative process, which trembling politicians are afraid to shun but is a mechanism that eventually will handcuff them and render them all but irrelevant.

This is the direct result of years of legislators kowtowing to the lowest common denominator and disgorging the shallowest of populist rhetoric -- "What's wrong with letting people have their say through initiatives?" And the seals in their districts applaud, the older ones clapping most vigorously.

Some perspective: A quarter-century ago, Nevada lawmakers tried to head off a Prop 13 analogue here by enacting the so-called tax shift, which reduced property taxes and increased reliance on sales taxes. It was not policy; it was panic. In the interim, lawmakers have continued to pander on property taxes, passing abatements for seniors and those who meet a definition of "severe economic hardship."

Now, another incipient taxpayer revolt has prompted the effluvial offerings from politicians who have created a self-fulfilling prophecy by their continued warnings that the barbarians are at the gate. But this is a much different Nevada than 25 years ago, with growth sapping services and legislators unwilling to do anything about it. And they plan to siphon from the coffers of local governments, which are bent to the breaking point but perhaps should cede some of the increased property tax revenue to the state.

Even if the property tax issue is real for a few -- and most people should be thrilled their holdings have appreciated so much -- then why not debate it and decide what to do in the context of a comprehensive tax policy, not a perpetually inchoate one?

Governors and legislators have procrastinated on this issue for too long and, with the initiative fever boiling and the natives growing more restless, it may be close to too late. People want all the services they can use and don't want to pay for any of them. Add in a senior population that has too many who just want to move here and roll up the drawbridge, and the problem becomes almost untenable.

"People want more things done in education," Hobbs said. "We are seeing those initiatives out there. They want more done for police protection. We have a ballot question to fund more police. People want more done at the same time we have the desire to pay a lot less for it. Somewhere in the middle there is a balance."

But the middle ground may no longer exist here, leaving a chasm between those who Just Say No and those who Just Say Anything. As the election draws nigh and (shudder) the Legislature looms, the words of Pete Townsend come to mind here, with an ironic twist:

"We'll be fighting in the streets

With our children at our feet

And the morals that they worship will be gone

And the men who spurred us on

Sit in judgment of all wrong

They decide and the shotgun sings the song"

As voters tip their hat to the new Constitution, the one that will paralyze government once these initiatives pass, and legislators take a bow for the new revolution, the one they spurred their constituents to begin and that will reduce them to impotent button-pushers, it's clear that we will get fooled again.