Editorial: Pay now, or pay later

Wednesday, March 21, 2007 | 7:23 a.m.

Nevada's tax receipts are expected to come in $40 million to $50 million less than what had been forecast for the next two fiscal years. It is an ominous foreshadowing for a state budget that experts predict is heading for an all-out fiscal crisis in the next decade.

According to a story by the Las Vegas Sun on Sunday, state lawmakers and budget experts say that without incremental tax increases, Nevada most certainly will face the kind of financial stress it experienced before the 2003 tax increase - the state's last major increase.

With Gibbons and his supporters in the Legislature dead set against raising taxes while pushing to preserve tax breaks for businesses, cuts to essential programs - or budget freezes that amount to cuts when inflation costs are considered - are certain in the years to come.

Why? It's a matter of some simple math, experts told the Sun's J. Patrick Coolican and Cy Ryan. While it is true that Nevada's population and tax receipts are increasing, the money doesn't offset the costs of paying for that growth in terms of new roads and such services as health care, schools and prisons.

Legislators assemble piecemeal funding packages that last one or maybe two years, but they have no real long-range plans for how the state is going to run in the future. And no one wants to bring up the dreaded T-word, so every two years the Legislature convenes and begins the fiscal shell game anew. Assemblyman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, which writes the budget, told the Sun he doesn't have enough staff to plan more than two years in advance.

Nevada ranks at or near the bottom nationally in the amount it spends on education, health care and other social programs. It also needs nearly $4 billion in new roads. Trimming programs isn't going to cut it. Tax increases are inevitable, but are much more palatable - politically and on the pocketbook - in smaller increments. Nevada's growth is not going to pay for itself. We can pay a little for it now, or a whole lot more for it later.