LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

Not fair for businesses to get free ride here

David Adams, Las Vegas

Sunday, May 10, 2009 | 2:05 a.m.

In Friday’s Las Vegas Sun, letter writer O.T. Neal lambastes state Sen. Steven Horsford for his proposal to raise taxes on corporations in Nevada. He accuses Horsford of wanting to increase the size of government. He claims businesses will go elsewhere.

Neal instead proposes to cut taxes and then, magically, revenue from all sectors will grow. Wow. Happy days are here again.

As of today, the amount of money coming in to Nevada’s coffers is nearly a billion dollars less than the amount required to pay for those services.

For those Nevadans who don’t want to tax businesses, perhaps they would go along with, for example, no police or fire protection for businesses that don’t pay taxes. After all, taxpayers supply the dollars for police and fire services, so those services should be limited to taxpayers.

Or would they prefer to simply eliminate one or more of the police, firemen, highway maintenance workers, etc., so Nevada will not have to tax people for their services? How about simply closing down UNLV or UNR? That would save money. Why not eliminate kindergarten altogether, instead of trying to move to all-day kindergarten? Or open schools only four days a week?

By implementing all, or most of the above, taxes could be significantly lowered, and then, according to those who don’t want to tax businesses, all will be well.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Discussion: 3 comments so far…

By neiman1

5/10/09 at 9:55 a.m.

Suggest removal

Let's just raise taxes on business. Much better they lay off workers than the government. Someone is going to, the public trough drinkers just want you to lose your job so they can keep theirs. That is not a sustainable model.
By seslew

5/10/09 at 2:50 p.m.

Suggest removal

By golly I think he has got it! Yes that is exactly what we should do, some or all of the solutions you mentioned. If all the police have to do is investigate and arrest adults voluntarily involved in "victimless" crimes or stand around talking at crime scenes let's have a layoff at Metro. If Nevada DOT can't do any better than the fiasco down MLK Blvd. we can save some money there by hiring less people who are competant to get the work done. I am no expert on if the fire department is overstaffed but if it is let's get rid of the firemen who told county government to take a hike when asked to give up a portion of their FUTURE RAISE to help balance the budget. I never thought about it but school four days a week is a great idea if we can make sure the kids have the opportunity to get a good education instead of what they get now. Maybe we could save enough to give teachers a raise so they can stop their incessant whining about being underpaid while the parents of their students face financial crisis. All day Kindergarten? Maybe we shouldn't continue academic experimentation during a hard economy. Your last suggestion was to close UNLV all together, Would that mean we would no longer have to listen to a certain Mr. Rogers AND help balance the budget?
Priceless!
By POWERPLAY

5/11/09 at 12:41 a.m.

Suggest removal

All hotels in clark county with at least 250 rooms should have to kick in more casino tax money and it should only go to NEVADA DOT to be used only for work on I-15 from state line north to speedway blvd. and all of the 215 Beltway plus state routes 93 and 95 no farther out then 15 miles north and south from the downtown spaghetti bowl plus all the small feeder roads around the strip like Frank Sinatra, Harmon, Kovel, Dean Martin Dr, and Industrial Road. They are the ones that are bringing in the large volumes of people' Leave the little guy alone they are only trying to earn a living' just staying in business is half the fight. SCHOOLS AND ROADS TAKE UP TO MUCH OF THE STATE BUDGET AND SOMETHING MUST BE DONE AND SOON.