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StumbleSUN EDITORIAL:
Protecting Nevada’s future
There are other ways to handle state budget deficit than broad service cuts
Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.
As the Legislature and Gov. Jim Gibbons prepare for the all but inevitable special session to address the budget deficit, they should consider the incredible need in the state caused by the recession.
Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston recently wrote, in the Sun’s sister publication In Business Las Vegas, about some staggering numbers affecting social services. Applied Analysis, a Las Vegas consulting firm, reported that the social services in Nevada are strained. For example:
• A program that provides temporary assistance for families had nearly 28,000 beneficiaries in September, a 40 percent increase over the previous year.
• The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as the food stamps program, helped more than 238,000 recipients, a record. That is nearly 10 percent of the state’s population.
• The number of people eligible for Medicaid grew by 20 percent in September from the previous year to more than 225,000.
So what does the government do? Unfortunately, the governor has tried to use the recession as a way to shape the state to his anti-government philosophy. He wants to gut the state budget, including education and a variety of crucial services. Despite what Gibbons and his like-minded allies say, the state has never been extravagant in its spending.
In fact, over the past few decades, spending has not kept up with the state’s growth, and there has been a paucity of services as a result. The state’s schools, for example, are funded well below the national average for per-pupil spending. Nevada’s services, as it is often pointed out, regularly rank near the bottom of the nation in terms of funding and quality. As UNR professor Elliott Parker has noted in a previous commentary for the Las Vegas Sun, Nevada’s government is the smallest in the nation — judging by either the number of employees per capita or the state’s general fund expenditures as a share of the economy.
However, Gibbons has continued to talk about making cruel cuts. Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, sent a letter to Gibbons on Tuesday, suggesting several other ideas to protect important areas of the budget, particularly education, which has become a favorite Gibbons target. Buckley noted that by looking elsewhere, the state could reduce the size of the deficit. For example, she said the state may have up to $20 million in untapped reserves and unclaimed property it could draw on. She also said an audit conducted last year found that there were between $93 million and $163 million in unpaid insurance premium taxes, yet she said there had been “little effort” by the Gibbons administration to pursue the issue. Buckley asked: “If collection of owed taxes would yield fewer or even possibly no cuts to education, why wouldn’t we do it?”
Good question.
The bottom line is that there are other ways to handle the state budget crisis than just blindly cutting, which will only set the state back further and harm Nevada’s children. We hope the governor is listening.
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Collecting taxes from bankrupt people is not a plan.
Try again
The LV Sun is trying to say that the answer to Nevada's fiscal woes is to raise taxes. They just don't have the requisite guts to actually say it.
Comrads !! Party Members !! Block Representatives and Snitches !! Assorted Idiots and Doers of Good (those who like Obama)
A solution to the deficit in Nevada is simple. Raise the tax on Gas, Smokes, Vodka, Beer and Lottery. That does it.
What are the details on uncollected insurance premium taxes? If this is owed by those without money how would the state go about collecting? Are they suggesting siezing assetts such as condos or cars or diamonds or court appearances? That in itself could be a castrophy.
After the deficit is resolved all Nevadians would then be issued a stamp that would allow them a discount at the gas pump, vodka counter, smoke shop or lotto shop for a certain amount to offset what their contributions were.
We have to pay to play. This free nation must be supported one way or another. God will punish those who take us to war illegally and provide tax cuts for the rich as it is nothing but a way to rob the poor and helpless and make the rich richer - about 3.5 Trillion right there. Thieves and criminals, like AWOLBush and Draftie5TimesCheney, live in posh, plush wealth after having destroyed this nation for eight years. God is now in control and is seeking his justice from these criminals and their henchmen of shedded blood and torture.
Comrads !! Party Goers and Members !! March On !!!
Social "services" is not a crucial government function. They should be cut and taxes should not be raised on honest Nevadans.
Resources are always limited. We have to find not only the best use for the available resources but the most efficient way of using those resources. The more efficient you are, the more you can stretch those resources to provide more services.
If providing these social services is crucial, why does the Las Vegas Sun editorial board wish to use those resources in the most inefficient way possible?
http://www.writeonnevada.com/2009/12/we-...
How about this plan for fixing the budget deficit:
- Cut all state funding for the two universities. So what if they close or tuition rises to $20K per year? Paying an extra $1 on services like hair cuts and massages would be a crazy way to try and support an effort to bring higher paying jobs to the state.
- Merge the community colleges with K-12. Fire half the teachers and increase class sizes at all levels to 100 per classroom. Obviously class-size reduction has not proved its worth so let's try class-size enlargement.
- Privatize all of the roads and highways. I know I would rather pay a $5 toll every time I drive than pay an extra $1 on my grocery bill once a month.
- Divert all funding for "social" services to a new agency that would better organize all the people that depend on government aid. That agency would begin round-ups and bus them out to the middle of the Nevada Test Site, explain to them that no one in the state is willing to pay higher taxes to help them through their misfortune, and then leave them for dead.
I realize how much Americans loathe paying taxes, but how else can the state (or City) government raise the extra revenue needed for the hugely increased social service safety net programs?
Cutting government workers salaries (or reducing the number of workers) does not save immediate money. It only creates savings down the road.
Suck it up Nevada and be kind. You don't know how tiny your current tax load is. Try living in Canada. Probably over half of our earnings go to taxes of one sort or another, but it is well worth it. Our society is much fairer than yours. But then we don't have citizens like your "jlb101".
An example of wasting money: http://www.writeonnevada.com/2010/01/no-...
US Government's own report concludes that the $100 billion Head Start program basically produces no lasting gains for students.
Canada, sounds like you simply have a different definition of fair.
fosimmons, when did Nevada get a lottery?
"The bottom line is that there are other ways to handle the state budget crisis than just blindly cutting, which will only set the state back further and harm Nevada's children." -- While "blindly" cutting isn't smart, the only obvious examples to cuts are 1)raise taxes, or, 2)increase debt.
Belleville-I wouldn't live in that socialist cesspool if they gave me free rent and an allowence. I value freedom too much.
This letter is sooooo funny.
They hint...hint...hint that we need to raise taxes but do not have the courage to say it.
They refuse to accept the facts that last session resulted in a tax raising record and that several sessions ago was another tax raising record.
They just love taxes....except when it applies to them.
Clark County can file a lawsuit where they would get over $600 million in back taxes and an additional millions every year.
But the Sun fights that tax tooth and nail.
Why?
Because it would raise taxes on one of their businesses.
Hypocrites and cowards.....how low can the Sun go!!!
"The bottom line is that there are other ways to handle the state budget crisis than just blindly cutting, which will only set the state back further and harm Nevada's children."
Oh, yes, it's always about the CHILDREN. This is disingenuous nonsense. The Sun wants to raise taxes. I say, live within our means, and if that means cutting services until they are in line with revenues, start hacking.
DON'T LET THE SUN SET ITS SOCIALIST AGENDA.
Why not have a debt sharing formula that would look something like this:
For every Million Dollars of giveback by our civil servants (all done through a reduction in contracted hours) we have an additional TWO Million Dollars in addition Gibbons Paranoia Funds (taxes) that have to be abated in reverse order.
When times get better, we reinstate Two Million Dollars in wages for ever million of Gibbons Paranoia Funds that are ended.
This means that those who sacrificed hundreds or thousands of dollars in salaries will be joined by those paying pennies more a gallon for gas, or a nickle a shot more for ome Chinaco.
We'd all have some skin in the game. It may force Guvner Paranoia into a shrinks office and heck, he may emerge as a little less anti-social and a lot more responsible public servant.
I am not holding my breath.
If you have time to kill, Google Belleville, Canada. Snow White lives there along with Dopey, etc.