LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

Our state’s tax system is not broken

Knight Allen, Las Vegas

Saturday, Nov. 15, 2008 | 2:02 a.m.

The Las Vegas Sun’s front page article on Thursday, “The unpopular, endlessly debated truth about our taxes,” is a remarkable example of how a truly outstanding elected official can be absolutely right and incredibly wrong at the same time on the same subject.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley’s chanting of the mindless mantra “Our (tax) system is broken” is right up there with “The Earth is flat.” Our system is not broken. Ours is the best tax system in the country.

Madame Speaker and the Sun could hire Guy Hobbs and Jeremy Aguero to go on a quest to find a more stable system and all that will happen is they will come back with the only conclusion out there: There is no such thing as a stable tax base.

Every state tax system that is sailing through these very tough times is dominated by agriculture, commodities and energy. If those areas of the economy continue to implode, you’ll see very quickly just how unstable those tax systems are.

On the other hand, Ms. Buckley’s position that we need to massively increase the size of the rainy day fund in order to weather the inevitable ups and downs of our economic system is 100 percent correct. This is the only way any state under any tax system can eliminate the “feast or famine, boom or bust” realities of a market economy.

It’s up to Ms. Buckley, State Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford and the Sun to back off the “broken tax system” twaddle and figure out how to get the rainy day fund up to $1.5 billion, where it should be.

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

By KDR81

11/15/08 at 8:23 a.m.

Suggest removal

$1.5 billion is way too high.

$500 - $700 million could have easily covered this shortfall, had Nevada been willing to show restraint in its spending.

When the "windfall" revenues come in, put some aside and give the rest back. DON'T INCREASE SPENDING!

Keeping $1.5 billion out of our economy will be damaging. That is nearly 20% of our state's overall budget and a large chunk of change to keep out of buying and selling goods in our state economy.
By gunowners4obama

11/15/08 at 8:59 a.m.

Suggest removal

As I just noted on another post, some of you natives don't seem to grasp that there are other states - most of them - that do not rank "at the bottom of all the good lists," as Dina Titus so aptly phrased it, and that do levy way more business taxes. Allen, it's you who's a broken record. I'll grant you that there's always a need to ferret out waste by gov't, but would guess you're not going to find enough here to solve this crisis.

When these revenues could have been increased, they weren't. As state spending had to increase with population increases, the state screwed itself by allowing ridiculous profit without reasonable tax increases.

Gibbons is a patsy of mining, and too many Nevada residents are patsies of slimeballs like Gibbons. Wake up, folks. Your state is a laughingstock, and you look like some of the biggest suckers in the country. But political corruption and a population too ignorant to fix it are what you get when you're always #49 or #50 in education.
By gunowners4obama

11/15/08 at 9:07 a.m.

Suggest removal

Geez, I just reread that: "Our system is not broken. Ours is the best tax system in the country."

Are you secretly laughing when you write things like that? Are you testing how outrageous you can be and still have products of the NV ed system such as KDR agree with you, or go you one better? Or are you just that ignorant, having rarely set foot out of this backwater?

Allen, this state is a pathetic joke, with a relatively low quality of life for millions of residents. Did you read the Sun story about the suicide rate here? It's not all from gambling, Allen.
By KDR81

11/15/08 at 3:24 p.m.

Suggest removal

You are right we need a better education system.

Maybe then people will understand that after increasing funding for public education over 200% since 1961 (and that is after adjusting for inflation) and our education system still has not improved, then they would realize that spending more WOULD NOT WORK.
By jfnance32

11/15/08 at 9:19 p.m.

Suggest removal

DC schools get one of the highest funding per student rates in the world.

Guess what.....you will be hard press to find one congressman, one senator or one high ranking offical that sends there child to that school system.

I am sure that Obama will not dare send his children there either.