Wednesday, April 25, 2007 | 7:09 a.m.
CARSON CITY - There is this sheet of paper floating around the capital that might have the solution to transportation funding embedded in its blizzard of numbers. But even if a melange of taxes can be extracted from this document to pay for needed roads and highways, is there an accompanying political matrix that can add up to 28 and 14 - the number of votes in the Assembly and Senate, respectively, needed to pass a tax increase?
The "Nevada Transportation Megaproject Fiscal Model" has about three dozen taxes listed on one side and then extrapolates how much each of them might raise stretched over 40 years. The document is the work product of Guy Hobbs and Jeremy Aguero, the two most respected number-crunchers in the state who have been here before.
Indeed, the document seems eerily reminiscent of tax scenario papers that stacked up in the Legislative Building four years ago during The Great Tax Non-Debate. In 2003, Hobbs and Aguero were conscripted to run various revenue models before the Gang of 63 cobbled together a still-inexplicable and policy-bereft package that constituted the largest tax increase in history.
This session, with a governor who apparently repeats his "no new taxes" pledge from dawn to dusk, lawmakers and local government types have asked the Hobbs-Aguero team to give them a road map to solving the problem Jim Gibbons wants to study for a little longer. And still Southern Nevada motorists gently weep.
Hobbs and Aguero have run numbers from a panoply of taxes that include: car rental taxes, gaming taxes, impact fees, various fuel taxes, property taxes, room taxes, sales taxes, slot route taxes and weight distance taxes. Toll road and lottery projections also are included.
The model attaches relatively low rates to the proposed tax increases - a quarter-cent for the gaming tax, 1 cent onto property taxes - to predict revenue through 2047. Even though the model goes out 40 years, the most common plans circulating consider a 20- or 30-year amortization schedule - either way, a goal of a couple of hundred million a year is considered necessary to fund what is on the low end a $3.8 billion infrastructure deficit.
The document itself is very useful and somewhat innocuous - yet to be perfumed with the scent of politics. Running the numbers is a walk in the park; navigating the politics is like a swim in shark-infested waters.
Start with Gibbons, who seems unconcerned that he will become Governor Irrelevant if lawmakers can count to the magic 28 and 14 - the two-thirds needed to pass any tax increase, that courtesy of the Gibbons Tax Restraint Initiative from last decade. Gibbons has been whispering about solutions - public-private partnerships, finding water rights under highways and now, it seems, diverting room taxes. A tax diversion is not a tax increase, so the pledge is intact.
But unless he surprises everyone and proposes his own plan, it's up to lawmakers who see this as a clear and pressing problem to come up with their own matrix and then find the votes to create a veto-proof majority. Some legislative leaders are scheduled to meet later this week to consider the Hobbs-Aguero document, and my guess is there will be as many opinions on which combination of taxes to use as there are people in that sit-down.
It's hard in late April to locate the intersection of policy - finding taxes that have a nexus to transportation and that are transparent and equitable - and politics - making it palatable to enough lawmakers. In 2003 that intersection produced a horrific crash, with little policy underpinnings and desperate re jiggering of tax models to grab Republican votes.
It will be similar this session, with the Senate Republicans likely holding the key to the success or failure of this endeavor. Equally important will be if Governor Irrelevant decides to veto any package, will the Republicans who vote for the package hold firm or relent to sustain the gubernatorial veto? And that's assuming the timing is right so Gibbons doesn't get a chance to use a pocket veto - that is, do it after lawmakers leave town.
This could take awhile. In 2003 it took two special sessions to get the numerical and political matrices to align. And if you really want to start to fret about the Legislature still being in session around Independence Day, consider that four years ago, you had a Republican governor who actually was supportive of such a plan.
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