Brian Greenspun notes how we need fathers, not selfish sheep

Sunday, June 17, 2007 | 7:02 a.m.

Acting like a father can make for a very happy Father's Day.

Since July 22, 1989, I, like so many other Americans who no longer have their fathers with them, have had to be content with the sweet and warm and meaningful and wonderful memories of the man who raised me, taught me and took some pride in the man I had become. For so many of us, memories are all we have.

For the rest - those who still have their dads to talk to, learn from and emulate or for those who have just become fathers and who dream of all the ways they, too, will be good and decent role models to their own children - today is a day on which to focus those life dreams that are most important.

Although I am constantly thinking, "what would Hank do or say?" it is on this particular day, the one set aside for all children to pay particular attention to the fathers among us, that my thoughts turn directly to what did I learn from my father and how must I act to honor his memory. We all feel that need and we each, I hope, act on it in a way that honors the men who helped give us life.

My father was the kind of man who rarely, if ever, shrunk from a good fight or ceded ground to the bullies in society who used their muscle or other powers to threaten, cajole or confuse people of good will and good intentions. It was always the little guy, the fellow who couldn't do it without some help, who got my father's attention. "The wealthy, the powerful, the connected," he'd say, "can take care of themselves. Someone has to stand up for those without a voice, those who entrust their futures to their leaders and those who assume, however right or wrong they may be, that people are of good will and do the right thing."

Since we are talking about fathers today, it is fair to say that our children need someone to stand up for them, to protect them. And to ensure the kind of future for them that they are too young to obtain for themselves. That person would, should and has to be the fathers of this world.

I am thinking about my role as a father and a grandfather - and what a role that is - in the context of a Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial chastising a very good and decent father, Jim Rogers, for tilting at the windmill of a personal income tax.

Jim, who is also the do-something chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, has been speaking out about the need for an income tax-based revenue model in Nevada to fund the incredible needs of not only the higher education system in our state, but also all manner of infrastructure needs, be it roads, highways, K-12 education, health care or whatever public and social good that the people of this great state deem valuable for their continued and growing quality of life. And, so far, he is speaking solo.

As a father who is committed to do what I can to make this a better place to live for all Nevada children, and as a grandfather, who is now looking decades beyond my own life expectancy and trying to build the kind of place the very young ones can grow up to call a good and decent home, I have come to the conclusion that Jim Rogers is right. So, at the very least, there are two voices of reason and responsibility to cry in the wilderness of the "tax someone, anyone, else but me" world.

It is no surprise that the newspaper that is delivered with the Las Vegas Sun is railing against income taxes. After all, those folks are against all taxes unless, I suspect, they are taxes the other guy pays on behalf of the out-of-state owners who take plenty from our community and give little or nothing back. Why else would the R-J's owners want to do everything they can to keep the "rich , " as they call them , from having to pay a tax on income? Rich, by the way, doesn't come close to describing the level of wealth that newspaper's owners have amassed. And they darn well intend to keep all of it no matter whom they have to get taxed or whom they have to ridicule as part of their avoidance scheme.

Years ago one of the most astute, fiscally conservative and well - intentioned founders of modern-day Las Vegas spoke out against the vote that enshrined the income tax prohibition into the Nevada Constitution. As a banker who made tons of money, you would think he, too, wanted to keep all he could get. But you would have been wrong , because he was thinking about the future. He told all who would listen that denying the state the flexibility to tax incomes, especially of the wealthiest Nevadans, would hog-tie our state and force us to make bad revenue decisions in the future.

Less than two decades later, his words have been prophetic. In 2003 the Governor's Commission on Tax Policy, of which I was a member, came up with what it considered the fairest, most broad-based tax it could to invest every Nevadan in the future by having them pay their fair share. Because a personal income tax was not available, the commission settled on a very modest gross revenue tax on businesses, and only those that earned close to $1 million . That didn't work because the forces of inertia and a selfish Chamber of Commerce killed the attempt to do add stability and certainty to Nevada's revenue future.

We just witnessed the result of that shortsightedness in the 2007 Legislature, which left town without really addressing education, health care, mind-numbing traffic jams and tourist-killing parking lots from here to Los Angeles - all because we don't have a system of taxation that is fair, broad-based and progressive. Had an income tax been available that would have taxed those with money and not those without it, roads and classrooms could have been built, school books could have been bought and social needs that continue to drag us down could have been met.

There is another benefit to an income tax in Nevada. We have been a haven for people from across the country who move here specifically to avoid paying income taxes in other states. The problem is that they come here to enjoy the fruits of Nevada's labors without contributing much of their own , except "no" votes every time a school needs to be built or a road needs to be paved. There may have been a time when we needed the population influx , however it came and whoever it was. Now, I believe, we need people who are willing to contribute to the betterment of this place the rest of us call home - by paying their fair share - and not people who come here to live off the fat of this wonderful land.

On this Father's Day the message has to be that we have to do more than get breakfast in bed from our kids or the day off for a golf game. We have to actually be fathers. And that means we have to act like fathers and do all that we can to protect the little ones as they grow up and provide them opportunities once they have reached an adult age.

Fathers have to stand up for their children's futures. They have to act, not in their own selfish interests, but in the broader interests of those who are counting on them. In short, we have to act like men and not the sheep that follow the bleating of those who would lead us astray for their own economic benefit.

There is nothing wrong with an income tax that is fair, progressive, broad-based and stable. Especially one that gets money from those who can afford it and not from those who can't.

Hank Greenspun, if he were alive, for as much as he detested the heavy-handed, power-hungry Internal Revenue Service and its minions who preyed on the little people who were just trying to earn a living, would have stood up with Jim Rogers and urged our elected leaders to consider the sanity of a well-structured and light-handed tax on the incomes of the wealthiest Nevadans.

If I want to honor my father and honor my role as a father, I can do no less. So, move over, Jim. There are now two of us tilting at that windmill. And let the Review-Journal and its selfish, greedy friends take their best shot.

Happy Father's Day to the men out there who are willing to do what good fathers must.

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