Editorial: O’Connell and taxes

Friday, Sept. 3, 2004 | 5:40 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

September 4 - 7, 2004

State Sen. Ann O'Connell, who is in a tough primary race against Joe Heck, has been saying some strange things lately. O'Connell, a Las Vegas Republican, has aired radio ads and sent out campaign mailers to constituents that claim the gaming industry is working against her re-election because she refused to let the industry "raise your taxes and lower theirs." Nothing could be further from the truth, however.

From the beginning of the 2003 Legislature, the gaming industry agreed that the state was in dire financial straits and that taxes needed to be raised to pay for essential services such as education. Gaming asked the Legislature to make the tax system more equitable, by extending taxation to nongaming businesses that weren't paying their fair share. Gaming agreed to support a tax increase on itself, and it supported a broad-based business tax that also would affect the nongaming side of its business -- restaurants, retail, hotel rooms -- which can make up about half of a property's revenue. The broad-based business tax failed in the Legislature, but gaming did not fight the gaming tax increase, which passed. Never did gaming try to get its taxes reduced. So much for straight talk from O'Connell, who is vainly trying to find a bogeyman in the casino industr y.

On the other side of the coin, O'Connell, who has built an anti-tax reputation, is trying to explain away her signing onto legislation during the 2003 Legislature that would have increased taxes $1.6 billion over two years, well beyond what Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn was proposing. Now O'Connell says she didn't actually support the tax increase legislation she co-sponsored, that signing on to the bill was just a way of giving lawmakers an alternative tax plan to debate. Huh? You're against raising taxes, so you co-sponsor legislation that would provide the greatest tax increase in the history of Nevada? On this, too, O'Connell defies credibility.

It's often been said that the first casualty in war is the truth. The truth has become a casualty in O'Connell's campaign, too.