Where do Republicans really stand on taxes? Depends on who you ask

By Jon Ralston

Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009 | 2:01 a.m.

The first week of the session is over and we have a perplexing question: Who really speaks for the Republican Party? And the corollary: Who listens?

This question becomes relevant now — and especially later — after the state’s most respected GOP leader, Bill Raggio, compellingly argued that the Republican governor’s budget is probably unworkable and that the possibility of tax increases is real. Raggio, who some would vote for as the greatest legislator in Nevada history, made those comments not only on “Face to Face,” but in other venues, too.

“I don’t want to be in a situation where we’re taking people’s wheelchairs away,” Raggio said. “So, there are essential services that I will not leave here unless they are served.”

Raggio’s comments, while not as expansive, were not radically different in message, albeit more focused, than those made later last week by Senate Taxation Committee Chairman Bob Coffin. The Democratic chairman essentially said all taxes are on the table, which is what Raggio had said, too. “We need to save our education system, human resources, programs for the elderly and the young,” Coffin said, but it could easily have been Raggio.

That emboldened state GOP Chairwoman Sue Lowden to close out the week by launching an “urgent” missive on her blog to “help me defeat Bob Coffin’s tax hikes.” She declared war on any Democrats who dare to raise taxes and announced a guerrilla campaign to drum up opposition in freshman Assembly Democrats’ districts.

And thus the disconnect surfaces.

Lowden, who ironically is a close friend of Raggio’s, would have been more accurate if she had asked her readers to “help me defeat Bill Raggio’s tax hikes.” It’s not just that her dear friend had left the door open; it’s that no tax increase will pass this session unless Raggio sanctions it.

Lowden knows this — the Democrats need 14 votes in the upper house and there are only 12 of them. Bob Coffin matters much less to this debate than does Bill Raggio.

So is the legendary Raggio not a real Republican? Is he, in the parlance of pedants, a RINO — a Republican In Name Only? Indeed, the Lowden campaign echoes the right-wing Sharron Angle campaign last year in the GOP primary against Raggio. That is a truly painful irony.

It would appear that Lowden is siding with Jim Gibbons and not Raggio in the debate over Nevada’s future. Also emboldened by Coffin’s comments, Gov. Turtleneck, at week’s end, was appearing in a video droning on for nine minutes about not raising taxes in his usual cliche-filled drivel.

Are most Republican lawmakers — and, for that matter, voters — as simplistic as Gibbons and Lowden? I don’t think so.

Gibbons and Lowden appear to favor the dumbing down of the political debate to score easy electoral points — the kind of nauseating tit for tat that characterized the past week of stimulus bickering in D.C. Just mindlessly repeating “no new taxes” reduces any debate to the level of the Lowest Common Denominator, which, I deduce from Gibbons’ approval rating, is at most 25 percent of the electorate.

Legislative Republicans need to ask themselves some simple questions as they watch Gibbons, through his podcasts, and Lowden, through her attack plan, try to scuttle any thoughtful solutions.

Is the definition of a conservative Republican one who mindlessly bleats “no new taxes” and assails anyone who won’t chant along? Or is it a legislator who prefers spending cuts and trimming fat to raising taxes but won’t close the door to taxes if they are justified?

The Democrats have their own problems, including questions about whether Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford and Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley will be on the same page and whether they can control their troops. Coffin was widely portrayed as being off the reservation by openly talking about taxes, but he was only saying what has been whispered by lawmakers on both sides.

There was no shock value, just a high embarrassment quotient for leaders in both parties who have been trying to keep a lid on the tax talk as they build coalitions to approve taxes. “It’s like yanking the rug,” one key Republican said. “It’s just not helpful.”

The result of Coffin’s truth-telling — the Lowden assault and the Gibbons video — is symptomatic of what we will see all session long from the Legislature, perhaps resulting in the endgame maelstrom of The Great Tax Session of 2003.

Raggio had no trouble in Week One distancing himself from the state’s newest podcaster. Now he may have to talk to his friend, Madame Chairwoman, to try to resolve a GOP identity crisis that could be quite painful for some Republicans before session’s end.

Jon Ralston hosts the news discussion program “Face to Face With Jon Ralston” on Las Vegas ONE and publishes the daily e-mail newsletter “RalstonFlash.com.” His column for the Las Vegas Sun appears Sunday, Wednesday and Friday.