Jon Ralston:

If only the legislative session could have been better

Sunday, May 31, 2009 | 2:01 a.m.

CARSON CITY — When the Nevada Legislature’s 75th regular session effectively ended at 9:58 a.m. Friday, the motto of this year’s efforts became clear: “It could have been much worse.”

The official sine die didn’t accompany the Assembly’s smashing override of The Man Formerly Known as Governor’s veto of the $781 million tax increase, mirroring the Senate action of the previous evening. But beyond the machinations of various legislators and lobbyists, trying to slip bills through in the waning days, the session essentially was over when the lower house put its companion stamp on Ø’s irrelevancy.

It was an anticlimactic moment — the veto/override scenario and the general contours of the tax package had been known since January. But it was nonetheless significant, as a minority of GOP lawmakers’ ludicrous, Cassandra-like warnings of an economic cataclysm were leavened by more reality-based comments from legislative leaders.

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, perfectly articulated the salvage operation two-thirds of lawmakers had executed in each house, shortly after a couple of GOP assemblymen took to the floor to repeat the Chicken Little rhetoric heard in 2003, the last time $1 billion in taxes was raised.

“Government does have a responsibility to help those who cannot help themselves,” Leslie declared, a responsibility lost on Ø and his legislative lap dogs. “This budget is lean and the revenue plan is also lean. At least we won’t fall further behind ... We don’t live in a dictatorship. We also don’t live in a monarchy. One person doesn’t get to decide our destiny. He doesn’t; we do.”

And that encapsulates how this session could have been worse: The artist formerly known as Gov. Jim Gibbons, whose preening performance Thursday, complete with manufactured red veto stamp, banner with a silly slogan and seal-like supporters, could have had his way.

There really never was much chance that he would. And that is not just because the Legislature is controlled by Democrats but because his rhetoric simply was never credible.

Does anyone seriously believe — as opposed to the posturing palaver from lawmakers genuflecting to a far-right base — that this tax package will deepen the recession?

The central elements of the plan are a .54 percent payroll tax increase for businesses with payrolls of $250,000 or more and a .35 percent increase in the sales tax. So, if you listen to Ø and his few GOP apostles in the Legislative Building, this is what you believe:

• A business that has more than a quarter of a million dollars in payroll will have to lay off people or cut back because of 1.17 percent payroll tax on anything over a quarter-million dollars and a slight tax cut (1 percent) for its first $250,000 in payroll? If you have $500,000 in payroll, you were paying $3,150 a year. Now you would pay $4,175. Devastating for a big business, eh?

• If you go into your favorite retailer and buy some clothing for $100, you will now pay an extra 35 cents in sales tax. Will people seriously stop spending money because of that increase?

This is all nonsensical, but if you are The Man Formerly Known as Governor or his disciples, it sure sounds good to put it in apocalyptic terms. It is as if they are describing a slight leak in a faucet as a hundred-year flood.

They are counting on Nevadans simply being too dumb to decipher their hyperbole, too susceptible to their demagoguery to figure out they are being conned. Because that’s what they are trying to do — trick voters into believing that some massive tax burden has just been foisted on them, which is patently false.

Yes, as some have pointed out, Democrats running last year should not have mimicked Ø’s no-new-taxes mantra. They now look like hypocrites. But what they were back then was craven; what they are now is responsible.

And if Ø really cared about this tax increase, which he was one-fifth responsible for enacting because he included a $200-million-plus room tax component in his budget, he would have engaged lawmakers from Day One and tried to shift votes at the end to sustain his veto. I also never heard from any GOP legislators, many who spoke in favor of the budget and then voted against the taxes to fund it, what a better course might be. It’s easy to say no; it’s much riskier to say yes to preserving programs with taxes during a recession.

It could have been much worse. How sad. Maybe, though, after the 2011 session, even in The Session of Reapportionment and Redistricting, the motto will be different:

“We couldn’t have done much better.”

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.

Discussion: 7 comments so far…

By Future_2012

5/31/09 at 6:23 a.m.

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"They are counting on Nevadans simply being too dumb to decipher their hyperbole, too susceptible to their demagoguery to figure out they are being conned."

So Nevadans are to dumb to understand that taking $1.2 billion out the pocket of taxpayers and giving it to the state and local union workers is the right thing to do.

Works for me
By lassen122

5/31/09 at 7:36 a.m.

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Hey John, future_2012 is Chuck Muth, or Chuckles ghost writing again for Ed Goedhart, who has no brain...only a comment like that could come from a mindless drone like Chuck.
By darkhorse

5/31/09 at 7:50 a.m.

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I can only hope Muth and Gibbons join their pals Beers, Angle and Knecht. With a no compromise attitude in Carson, your days are done.
By JohnF

5/31/09 at 9:10 a.m.

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Jon,

Very well said.
By BringtheRain

5/31/09 at 9:35 a.m.

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Sadly, Future, I think you're right. I think Nevadans are too dumb to understand that the $1.2 billion in taxes raised this session actually benefit things they want and need, like a chance for their kids to go to an affordable college even if they weren't the best students in high school, or a chance to keep their teachers in-state when neighboring states pay so much more for educators.

You guys have done a real good job getting an ignorant Nevada electorate to believe that money for the social programs they use falls from the sky and their firefighters, road workers, social workers, planners, statute enforcers and educators would be happy to work for free if we just gave them the chance.
By Patrick_R_Gibbons

6/1/09 at 3:32 p.m.

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"If you have $500,000 in payroll, you were paying $3,150 a year. Now you would pay $4,175. Devastating for a big business, eh?"

Here is a bet: Jon Ralston will repeat this same line the next time the MBT is doubled. Of course tax increases are incremental, the point is they take more and more. Still, that is $4,000 in cash total that could have been put to good use for that company. Maybe it could have gone toward higher wages, a new employee, a few new computers or some other type of capital that helps the business improve. We don't know. All we know is they have $4,000 less and people like Jon act like its no big deal.
By Optimistic

6/4/09 at 7:43 a.m.

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Couple of points:

1. If you have $500,000 in payroll per year, you're not a big business. You have maybe 9-12 employees, depending on your industry. So the increase of $1,025 in Jon's example can't be put in context of a "big business." However,

2. Having run a couple of companies (and still doing so) of this size, I can say that paying $4,175 per year to contribute to the overall quality of our community is a negligible expense. It is fantasy to say an employee gets laid off because of it. It is fantasy to say a company will close because of it. It is true that businesses pay more that the payroll tax to government, but these "incremental" increases (as noted by Patrick) do not make significant impacts on a company's strategic decisions or its ability to implement them.