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Sunday, Sept. 19, 2010 | 2 a.m.
With all the chatter about Sharron Angle coddling violent spouses and Harry Reid describing a Delaware Senate hopeful as his pet, it was easy to miss developments on a serious topic last week: The state’s looming budget deficit.
It often seems, as the ads pollute the airwaves, that the U.S. Senate race has sucked all of the oxygen from Nevada politics. But the “race” for governor and the contests for the Legislature will have much greater short-term (and perhaps long-term) effect on the state’s fortunes. And with a fantasist and a mute seeking the state’s most important office, and most legislators and their foes dancing around the gaping budget chasm, it has been left to others to step into the breach.
How ironic that it has been conservatives — the ones at the Nevada Policy Research Institute and Assembly Minority Leader Pete Goicoechea — who have proposed bold, albeit flawed, solutions while no Democratic leader has suggested much more than platitudes and hints of revenue to come. Most Democrats running for an esteemed slot in the Gang of 63 are afraid to say what they really think — taxes should be raised — and most Republicans are ignoring reality — taxes will be raised — to get elected.
So when Goicoechea suggests a sales tax on food, which is a nonstarter but at least an idea, he is vilified by the right and smeared as a mining shill. Goicoechea, like most rural lawmakers, is a solid legislator with a strong work ethic, which puts him in stark contrast to most of the rest.
But the real idea folks — get ready to cringe, Democrats — have been the denizens of the NPRI warren, who have been producing screeds about the budget that are provocative and often flawed. But — you are going to hear this a lot from me — at least they are ideas.
NPRI actually has suggested broadening the sales tax, an idea under serious consideration in private talks among business types, while reducing the overall rate, which is high for the region. That idea could gain currency in the 2011 session.
Then last week, I was thrilled to see NPRI’s Victor Joecks sneer at what he called “The $3 billion deficit myth,” arguing that the budget can be balanced without new spending and that the amount is inflated for political purposes. I was ecstatic not because I think Joecks is correct — it all depends where you set the baseline and you can’t ignore hundreds of millions in stimulus funding used to balance the last budget. But NPRI is highlighting exactly what is not the point: The amount.
During the last great tax nondebate in 2003, lawmakers thought not of how they would raise taxes but how they would get to an arbitrary budget number to get the necessary votes. It was embarrassing and infuriating.
It’s the philosophical method, not the mathematical madness.
So kudos to Joecks and his organization for laying down the gauntlet and defining one side of the ideological divide. Now who will pick up the other side?
We will get no insight from the governor’s race. And why should a generally ignorant and inert electorate brandish pitchforks when both candidates simply declare “no new taxes” and clam up? Rory Reid says he might sign a budget with taxes but that’s irrelevant because the bill will have two-thirds backing anyhow, rendering any gubernatorial veto irrelevant unless the chief executive is willing to lobby after his veto.
Reid’s budget plan relies on magic money, but at least he has one. Brian Sandoval, sitting on a lead, thinks it’s fine, four weeks before early voting, to keep the public in the dark about how he would balance the budget.
Lawmakers and their opportunistic foes have been similarly craven, refusing to address the issue. But without a gubernatorial hopeful trying to educate the public and build momentum for the session, a chaotic disaster awaits next year.
The honest answer for Reid, Sandoval and the legislative candidates is fairly simple: “I will rule nothing out and we will see what the fiscal situation is according to the state’s Economic Forum come February 2011. As much as we don’t want to raise taxes, we need to be aware that this state provides a low level of services already. Sure, we need to reform public employee pay and retirement benefits, and we also have to lower some taxes to help small businesses survive. But we can’t just close our eyes to reality.”
I can’t wait to hear someone say that or a reasonable facsimile thereof. My guess is it will be a long wait, and it may be too late to do any good.
Discussion: 3 comments so far…
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Harry Reid describing a Delaware Senate hopeful as his pet. Hummmm.
Lets talk about Harrys failed Yucca policy.
The Harry Reid/Obama Yucca Policy continues to deny the obvious - Yucca Mountain is not DEAD. This means that Harry Reid has lied to the public about the safe storage indefinitely -- meaning it would be safe at Yucca.
Yucca Mountain is not DEAD despite every ILLEGAL move made by Harry Reid and Obama to kill it. Every move is now being reversed.
- On 9-15-10, to allow the NRC to license new nuclear power plant the NRC has approved an updated "Waste Confidence Rule" expressing the agency's "Legal Determination" that there is reasonable assurance that sufficient mined geologic repository capacity [Yucca] will be available to dispose of the commercial high-level radioactive waste and spent fuel generated in any reactor when necessary."
- On 9-16-10, MIT issued a report for the Obama/Reid/Chu formed a blue-ribbon commission which repudiates the Harry Reid Yucca lies about safety. One member of the Obama/Reid/Chu blue-ribbon commission--MIT Professor Ernest Moniz--was a co-chair of the new study. Like almost every other study of its kind, the MIT study says a geologic repository WILL BE NEEDED because some long-lived elements of spent fuel will remain for disposal no matter what reprocessing systems the fuel is run through.
- On 8-23-10, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced, it was renaming NTS as the "Nevada National Security Site," because it is increasingly being used by the NNSA for storage of toxic plutonium and other weapons-grade nuclear materials. Harry Reid Attended.
- On 8-23-10, the NRC issued a positive report on volume I of the Yucca Licensing Application. A staff of scientists and consultants for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission released the first volume of a five-volume safety evaluation report
- On 7-30-10, the NRC approved the proposed changes to 10 CFR Part 73.37 for spent fuel shipment across the country. Aside from a few administrative notification changes, it formally put in place all the post 9/11 Orders (like armed escorts in populated areas) that have been in place for years. It establishes that the shipping casks are acceptable to withstand even terrorist attacks.
- On 6-29-10 the NRC rule on Yucca Mountain came down and destroyed the credibility of Harry Reid and Obama. The NRC said "we deny DOE's motion to withdraw the Application. We do so because the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended (NWPA), does not permit the Secretary to withdraw the Application that the NWPA mandates the Secretary file. Specifically, the NWPA does not give the Secretary the discretion to substitute his policy for the one established by Congress in the NWPA.
future.....
YUCCA IS DEAD.
FORGET ABOUT IT.
Nuclear waste will be kept on site.
It will NEVER be shipped to YUCCA.
These right wing nutcases just can't seem to stay on topic. The topic here tea baggers is the State of the State of Nevada. It is about the Governors race and the races for local politicos.
Thank you, Judy. I am wondering how many right wing nutcases understand the difference between state and federal legislatures.
To globarrvers and Judy: I see where you're coming from. But, consider this: One of the agenda items of the Tea Party Movement is to return the power from the federal level to the state level as mandated in the US Constitution. Therefore, the national elections are relevant to state politics. As for Nevada's budget, I'd wager that the three of us, and perhaps a few more non-partisan people, could sit down with the state budget in line-by-line form and find a lot of ways to reduce expenditures so we wouldn't have to raise taxes. It's difficult for politicians to do this because they have to concentrate on getting re-elected.
"I will rule nothing out and we will see what the fiscal situation is according to the state's Economic Forum come February 2011. As much as we don't want to raise taxes, we need to be aware that this state provides a low level of services already. Sure, we need to reform public employee pay and retirement benefits, and we also have to lower some taxes to help small businesses survive. But we can't just close our eyes to reality."
Saying anything else is a pandering, obfuscating, bald-faced lie.
Can we get a REAL CANDIDATE IN HERE???
Thank you, Sagehopper - well said
Jon--want a reasonable budget discussion? Reader comments (with a couple of notable exceptions) are chocked full of spirit and reason.
HOW ABOUT THIS: We get several common citizens together and give them a line-by-line copy of the state's budget and let them eliminate the expenditures they deem unnecessary and/or wasteful. Then we wouldn't need any tax increases.
Why won't this happen? Because tax-and-spend politicians would have to give-up some of the power and personal enrichment that they buy with our money.