Editorial: A New Year’s resolution Voters in Clark County have supported raising taxes for roads, flood control projects, school construction and police. Now, however, the argument must be made that s

Sunday, Dec. 30, 2007 | 12:23 p.m.

To say that 2008 will be a critical year for Nevada is not an overstatement. Nevadans will face major choices that will determine the future of the state.

The state's budget crisis is the very visible background for three initiative petitions being circulated that would raise taxes on the gaming industry to pay for education, transportation projects and a number of other needs.

Those petitions, which could make their way to the fall ballot, come in response to the state's broken tax system that causes budget crises every decade or so. The petitions have been proposed because for decades elected leaders - afraid of touching taxes, the third rail of Nevada politics - have failed to readjust the state's tax system to adequately fund such basics of government as education. As a result, the state has suffered and is now enduring the consequences - struggling schools, crowded freeways and inadequate social services.

This month the Las Vegas Sun gathered civic leaders such as Assemblyman Ruben Kihuen, D-Las Vegas, MGM Mirage chief executive Terry Lanni, former Boyd Gaming President Don Snyder and Clark County Commissioner Bruce Woodbury to discuss Nevada's future.

These men cross generational and partisan lines. They are accomplished individuals, as well, who understand why it's so important to create a better Nevada.

They all agreed that the state's leadership needs to come together to solve the problem.

"We have to draw together some of the really good minds that we have in the community and look strategically at the longer term - at how we do business, where we want to be 20 or 30 years from now, and what's our plan to get there," Snyder said. "Otherwise, it's just going to be one Band-Aid after another."

Kihuen stressed cooperation, saying, "It's about bipartisanship. We just have to put our ideologies aside and sit down at the table and come up with a solution that's needed."

Lanni, Snyder and Woodbury are conservative Republicans, but they all expressed the need to change the tax system to bring in more revenue to improve our quality of life.

Woodbury noted that voters have supported worthy projects in the past.

"The people of this community will step up to the plate if they're asked to do so in the right way, and there's appropriate leadership in the public and private sectors," he said.

Voters in Clark County have supported raising taxes for roads, flood control projects, school construction and police. Now, however, the argument must be made that something more drastic needs to be done to prepare for the future.

Snyder, who was once chief executive of First Interstate Bank of Nevada, advocates broadening the state's tax system. Lanni agrees with that. Their backgrounds in gaming don't make their arguments any less persuasive. The reality is Nevada law allows thousands of businesses to pay little to nothing in taxes.

One of the arguments offered by those who are adamantly opposed to taxes and government is that broadening the tax base would deter business from coming to Nevada. Snyder, who has worked with the Nevada Development Authority to recruit new business to the state, dismissed that.

"We don't need to be a no-tax state to be able to attract businesses in Nevada, especially Southern Nevada," he said. "We do need good schools. We do need a transportation infrastructure that will handle 3 million people."

All of the leaders called for Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons to step up to take leadership on the issue. However, with Gibbons' no-new-taxes pledge, they all acknowledged that will be very difficult.

Snyder called on Gibbons to reconsider. Woodbury, Lanni and Kihuen said it would help if Gibbons did nothing else but lead the discussion. They all agreed that a wide coalition of business and civic leaders would help, but Lanni said the answer will be in the Legislature and getting lawmakers from both parties to work together to solve this.

"If not, I don't think we're going to be successful in dealing with this," Lanni said. "Ten years from now we'll be facing the same problems."

This is the year Nevada will have to deal with creating a stable tax base that truly funds the needs of this state. Voter initiatives are never the best way to solve complex tax policy. The state needs business and civic leaders to join elected officials in making a New Year's resolution unlike any they ever have. They should resolve to address this issue together and fix it for the good of Nevada.