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Stumblestate budget:
Groups join forces to rally against budget cuts
Advocates ask lawmakers to look elsewhere in balancing the budget
Members of the audience applaud a speaker during the Save Our State Coalition kickoff rally in Las Vegas Monday.
Monday, May 4, 2009 | 11:37 p.m.
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Representatives from labor, education and senior groups, among others, sent out an SOS for concerned citizens to rally against proposed budget cuts Monday evening in the Clark County Commission chambers.
Thirteen groups, including the Nevada Parent Teacher Association, Nevada AFL-CIO and Nevada Alliance for Retired Americans formed the Save Our State Coalition to speak out against proposed cuts in education, health care, senior support programs and other areas that they say would create more problems than they would fix.
Speaking at a rally that drew more than 100 people, organizers called on all Nevadans to contact their state legislators and tell them to find another way to meet the state's budget shortfall.
"You are the vanguard of our rallying cry to the state, which is that we have to find a way to maintain basic services," Nevada PTA President-Elect Alison Turner told the crowd.
Though attendance at the rally was relatively light, Turner said she hoped each person in the audience would talk to friends, family and co-workers to begin a grassroots effort.
The group didn't advocate a specific alternative -- Turner said she's not allowed to do so in her capacity with the PTA -- but said Gov. Jim Gibbons and the state Legislature need to look around and find other sources of revenue.
"All we're saying is that when the state's revenue has declined by 45 percent, you need to look at something else," she said.
Gibbons spokesman Daniel Burns said the governor remains convinced that raising taxes at this time would only hurt the prospects of recovery.
"I'm surprised that unions, which represent working men and women in this state, would support higher taxes, which would only hurt the working men and women of this state," he said.
Autum Tampa, a permanent substitute teacher with the Clark County School District, attended the rally to protest proposed education cuts. Earlier Monday, she found out that several workers in her position will be laid off this week.
Though her employment situation has her on pins and needles, Tampa said she was hopeful after attending the rally.
"I think that we can make a difference," she said. "I think that if more people get vocal, the legislators will have to stop and say, "We have to do something."
Raushanah Abdullah, a registered nurse at Valley Hospital and a member of the executive Board of Service Employees International Union, Nevada, said the Legislature needs to look at taxes on business, tourism and other sources as part of the solution.
Many of her patients, Abdullah said, already have to decide between buying medicine and buying food. Further cuts to Medicare and other health programs that offer help with medication and preventative care would be disastrous in the long run, she said.
"We can't do this," she said. "We're going to pay for this in the long run, because it increases the length of stay in the hospital for our patients when they don't have preventative care. We have to maintain preventive care."
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What "cuts" are being proposed for education? It seems that education is as safe as anything in Carson City. Is somebody trying to suggest that "cuts" are being considered to stir things up?
dbuss is on to something. Cut all the retired administrators double dipping as consultants and CCSD will suddenly have a excess of cash. PUt all the RPDP "teachers" that don't even work in schools back in the classroom. And the CPD "teachers" that don't work in classrooms. Put all the teachers that work in schools but are not assigned to a classroom back in the classroom. Done. Problem solved at no expensse to the taxpayer. No expensive consultant needed.
dbuss,
Over the past week, the governor has proposed 6% pay cuts to teachers and state workers. Then it went up to 11%-16% last Thursday, when the session ended. Yes, this is posturing to stir things up. Now they want teachers to be "grateful" that they are only going to receive a 4% cut. State workers are supposed to be happy that they get furloughed 1 day a month without pay. These cuts are still unfairly balancing the state's budget problems on a few individuals. The state needs to look at taxes to solve our budget problems, not the empty pocket books of teachers!
Nevada state government has grown far too rapidly, the growth was simply unsustainable. http://npri.org/publications/legislature...
Raising taxes won't save the state, but it will put us in the same situation in less than a decade from now.
My company just announced 20% salary reductions across the board, and I'm supposed to have pity for these government workers losing 4%?!?! So their proposal is raise my taxes and put me and my family out on the street.
"So their proposal is raise my taxes and put me and my family out on the street."
And if we don't, government workers will be the ones out on the street. I guess if it isn't you, you just don't care.
Doug,
The problem is Bluv only gets money if people voluntarily purchase his services. That means he has to work hard to convince people to give him money. He has to provide the best product at the best price to do so.
Government has no such incentive. It gets the same amount of money no matter how well or how poorly it performs. If it wants more money it doesn't have to work harder or provide a higher quality service it merely needs to take, through the use of force, other people's money.
All things considered, both bluv and the state workers care for themselves first and foremost but I would say Bluv cares more about others than the average state worker. He has to give people the service the want to make a living, a state worker (perhaps through no fault of their own) only has to get the legislature to take money from other people.
Taxation is the mandation of theft, theft is criminal. A society which imposes criminal theft upon its citizenship deserves failure.
Taxation is an imperialistic directive which demands rather than requests citizens to forefeit what they've earned to those that don't.
Taxation is a moral wrong that propagates evil and must be abolished in order for social good to prevail.
"Mankind is more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." T. Jefferson The Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776.
"We cannot solve today's problems with the same level of thinking that created them." --A. Einstein
"Truth never damages a cause that is just." -Mohandas K. Gandhi.
"The best government is that which governs least"
Patrick
I used to work for the state (and was laid off when the budget crunch started), so don't even try that codswallop on me. It doesn't cut ice, and it's an insult to the people who actually do work hard and provide vital services to the people that pay them.
And Harley - enough is enough. Yes, we know you think taxation is theft. If you don't like it, run for office and change it. Because this cut-and-paste rant is getting VERY old VERY fast.
Ever noticed the percentage of over weight state and county workers?
Maybe its just me...
douglasdemocrat; Nice take.
Nick; shut the he** up.
Nick you get to pay for there health insurance too.
Maybe we should require all state employees to run two miles a day before lunch.
Lots of them are smokers also.
Balance the budget!!!!
Balance the Budget!!! Trim the fat! opps there I go again...
Doug,
I have no doubt that some state employees do work very hard. But to believe that all work hard, when there is no strong incentive to do so is simply not believable. Anyone who thinks people will work hard, do their best when their is no reward for effort and no punishment for failure is simply not being honest. Maybe you were one of the altruistic ones, but do you honestly expect all of us to believe that all the state workers are just like you, working their best to help others with no reward for your effort?
Give me a break.
If the "altruistic" people had been in power - we never would have ended up on the top of every bad list and the bottom of every good list!
So, GET REAL!
what Patrick is saying, Douglas, is that unless the humble worker-bee is sufficiently subservient to his/her "Master" in the workplace, they won't be motivated to produce.
You must have FEAR. Fear that you'll lose your job, fear that you won't get a pay increase, fear that you'll be discriminated against, fear that you haven't adequately butt-kissed the proper superior. Fear enough not to complain about working conditions & worker's rights and foregoing any applicable protections contained therein.
If the worker is not in constant FEAR of losing their position, you might not wring every last drop of sweat from the worker's brow. And THAT
would NOT be good, as we MUST MAXIMIZE CORPORATE PROFITS.
ahhh the good old government system of wasting money and then asking the taxpayers to give them more money to waste. Why bother to fix a problem when you can just band-aid it up with some taxpayer money?
bluv...when times were good I am sure you were making more th an the state workers....you werent complaining then.....these people have taken less than the private work force for a while...so less cuts are only fair