Sunday, Dec. 16, 2007 | 1:18 a.m.
Just when you think it can't get worse, Jim Gibbons makes another decision.
And this decision - to cut the budget 4.5 percent and exempt almost nothing - contradicts his previous decision but somehow maintains the consistency of having no discernible logic, illuminating the Gibbons Lack of Administration's breathtaking incompetence and clumsily eviscerating the state's already-frayed educational and social services fabric.
Gibbons also showed that his word means very little - I guess it depends on what the definition of "exemption" is. And while he said as recently as two weeks ago that he would not cut "essential services" and thought it ludicrous to tap the rainy-day fund, the governor now will slash education and take money from the stabilization account.
But while he broke many promises - to educators and legislators, especially - the governor kept the only one that matters to him, the one that shows his deep, thoughtful commitment to this state's future: No new taxes.
And in so doing - oh this irony is rich - Gov. No Tax has almost guaranteed that there will be a tax increase. Friday's announcement that lower education, which Gibbons had exempted, will now be cut by $95 million will give only sustenance to those gaming tax initiatives.
The gaming industry is now sowing what it reaped by blindly anointing Gibbons because they believed he would be more predictable than state Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus. And he has been predictable - almost every move has been a toxic mixture of ineptitude and wrong-headedness. And so now gaming's choice is going to be responsible for a large gaming tax increase. All of those hundreds of thousands of dollars invested - talk about buyer's remorse.
(The exception, of course, is Gondolier Numero Uno Sheldon Adelson, who surely loves what Gibbons is doing. He is not only as conservative as his Carson City liege, but he knows this will provide only more impetus for his plan to destroy the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority by forcing more room tax revenue into the tax equation.)
Do the gamers really think Titus would have been worse for them? She would have included gaming in any tax fix to ensure the state provides better services, but she also surely would have gone after Big Business, too. Now, voters surely will embrace the teachers union's 3 percentage point increase or Kermitt Waters' 14 percentage point increase - that is, if the gamers can't use legal legerdemain and political influence to keep the questions off the ballot.
This is beyond ideology; this is about competence. Make no mistake: these people have no clue what they are doing. Check out this line from the release, which explains that the decision to revoke the exemptions occurred because "it became clear that an 8 percent reduction in some departments, such as the Department of Health and Human Services, would dramatically impact state services."
Really? Could Gibbons, the state's highest elected official, be the only person in Nevada who did not know that?
The unintended consequences of the Gibbons Lack of Administration's behavior will be felt by his biggest supporters. The governor may think he is being helpful to corporate Nevada, but when all of this plays out and gaming and maybe Big Business, too, are targeted, they will have two words for Gibbons: Don't help!
Gibbons, whose communications and leadership skills are virtually nonexistent, did not announce these cuts at a news conference, just as he did not announce the first plan. First the information trickled out and then he cravenly issued that news release.
The release cleverly points out that despite the new cuts in lower education, Gibbons still increased K-12 funding by 15 percent. Yes, this is only a reduction in an increase, which he points out to make it seem as if no harm is done.
But what he does not say - and what he, frankly, may not understand - is that most of the original increase was essentially mandated by increases in enrollment and that no new, expensive programs were proposed. (The only new, expensive program was one Gov. Consistent proposed - empowerment.) And this break-even budget, because of "roll-up" costs, was to keep us at the same near-last ranking among the states. And now that is being sliced.
Gibbons can do all of this without any legislative intervention because this is such a strong-executive state - and that's why he plans to wait until 2009 to tap the rainy day fund. But if Democrat after Democrat in the Gang of 63 - and maybe even some brave Republicans - don't start calling in outrage for a special session, they will be aiding and abetting the governor's criminally negligent behavior.
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