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By Anjeanette Damon (contact) 
Monday, April 25, 2011 | 8:46 p.m.
Mike McGinness
Steven Horsford
Sun Coverage
Senate Republicans rebuffed an effort Monday by Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-North Las Vegas, to force a vote in the full Senate on Gov. Brian Sandoval’s education budget cuts.
After Senate Minority Leader Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, read a statement supporting Sandoval’s budget, the 10 Republicans sat still, refusing to participate in a show of hands vote on whether to cut kindergarten through 12th grade education funding.
“Let me cut to the chase here, I’m supporting the governor’s budget,” state Sen. Michael Roberson, R-Las Vegas, said when it became clear Horsford intended to hold a series of votes on individual cuts to education proposed by Sandoval. “We don’t have to go through line item process. Put me down however you want, I’m supporting the governor’s budget.”
McGinness chided Horsford for using the floor of the Senate to poll lawmakers, then read his statement calling Sandoval’s budget a responsible way to deal with state spending in a recession.
“Yes, we are open for discussion and compromise on the budget, but tax increases will not and should not be part of the solution,” McGinness said.
McGinness said his statement, a blanket support for Sandoval’s budget, stood in lieu of his caucus’ vote on any of the education measures Horsford wanted to gauge support for.
“We have three weeks before these budgets have to be closed and if it’s a majority vote, then it’s a majority vote,” Horsford said. “But we gotta know if we are going down one path or another.”
Reminiscent of a similar budget hearing in the Assembly last week, Senate Democrats opposed the budget. The Senate hearing mostly avoided the acrimony that marred the Assembly debate, but exhibited no less intransigence on both sides of the aisle.
“To me the governor’s budget is unacceptable,” Sen. Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said. “I won’t vote for it. I will not.”
Fire the 140,000 ILLEGALS EMPLOYED IN NEVADA so Americans can find work. LET OUR ECONOMY SURVIVE. We cannot support all of Latin America especially when so many of them are here. STOP SPENDING ON ILLEGALS AND ANCHOR BABIES: K-12, Millenniums, TANF cash assistance, EBT food stamps, LIHEA utilities, Child Care, Child Support. PRECLUDE FOOD BANKS from feeding illegals SO THEY GO HOME. At some point, even Senator Horsford will realize the math doesn't work: fewer and fewer givers to more and more takers, consumers, illegals, indigents, parents who can't or won't support their children....
@roseanrose...Really?
"Yes, we are open for discussion and compromise on the budget, but tax increases will not and should not be part of the solution," McGinness said.
By claiming that there is room for discussion and compromise in one breath and unequivocally dismissing tax increases in another, McGinness has blatantly proven that Republicans in fact have zero interest in finding a compromise.
The republican party in Nevada is doing nothing but stonewalling the populace and making back room deals with foreign corporations and gambling bosses who only wish to take as much money out of the state as possible while giving nothing back to the community.
The big secret is that Democrats don't want to cut the budget at all but want to increase spending despite a prolonged recession. The other secret is that Brian Greenspun doesn't know the difference between deficits and shortfalls
http://www.thewesternwrangler.com/2011/0...
In other news you could cut Head Start and other pre-K programs and eliminate teacher advanced degree bonuses and save the state and local governments substantial amounts of money while doing no harm to the students.
You could also eliminate class size reduction and save nearly $300 million and likely do no harm to students (about 85 percent of the studies say nothing happens or students are harmed by class size reduction only 15 percent say students benefit).
From State Senator Michael Roberson's campaign website: "Michael is a UNLV Rebels and Kansas Jayhawks football and basketball fan ... He lives in Henderson, NV with his wife, Liberty Leavitt-Roberson, a fifth-generation Nevadan, public school teacher and student recruiter" http://www.votemichaelroberson.com/
He's apparently not a fan of UNLV education, just the sports. And he's married to a public school teacher. I suppose she supports his support of her pay cut and increased class sizes.
I and some other ladies lobbied 2 Republican legislators about a month ago asking what compromises could be made (ie. added revenue bills that were to be presented) in order to prevent the dismanteling of the educational system in Nevada. We were told that though they agreed that education should be saved and the cuts were severe they had been instructed by Gov. Sandoval not to deviate from his budget! And, that he would not budge. Today Senate Minority Leader Mike McGinnes said, "Yes, we are open for discussion and compromise on the budget, but tax increases will not and should not be part of the solution." This does not sound like compromise to me and it seems like one part of the people's representation is not functioning well (the Republican Senate). Why do the minority senators show up if they are not going to do their job and represent the people, but just allow themselves to be used as puppets of Gov. Sandoval. Perhaps if they perform to his expectations and he runs for the Latino GOP VP candidate, he may remember them in a positive way. Gov. Sandoval is killing education in Nevada and the ability for so many students to have a good education and gain meaningful success. But then he can afford to send his children out of state to school. In killing education, he is stiffling the possibilities for economic recovery and new businesses coming to Nevada. Think about it Republican Senators, if you hold this line you are a part of killing education in Nevada too!
There is enough and to spare in this state. Gold keeps going up, up, up. Mining Billionaires are taking the gold out of the ground and essentially "taxing" every person in Nevada by not adequately paying for it.
Perhaps . . . instead of talking about hurting kids, becoming last in the nation in education, and asking 300,000 + students in K-12 to pay the debts of overextended loans, construction problems and real estate investment. . . we should ask the BILLIONAIRES who are earning money hand over fist to pay the 5% they should.
$4.3 BILLION in deductions do not have to taken - even half of that, would fully cover this debt.
The GOP isn't about staying within a budget - they are about protecting corporate mining billionaires from having to pay anything at all.
That's right, you liberal morons blame Bush
The minions want more, we don't. Educational spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars to the extent that the system is broken and seriously flawed. It doesn't matter how many trillions we throw at education, you just can't spend to educate kids who have no desire to learn or work for their education. Kids have to be held accountable for their choices and given boundaries that they are held accountable for their choices. Education is about entering adulthood and becoming self supportive in life, nothing is free and you have to earn it to learn it. Kids and young adults are given too many freedoms and are treated like royalty and have no accountability for their choices or lack thereof. They're kids and the liberals have created a system that hasn't worked and will never work, it will continue to create a lazy generation who expects everything for nothing. Until we remove the liberal agenda from our educational system and allow parents to be parents and the system holds these kids accountable and stop blaming everyone else, no amount of money will educate anyone.
I am confused on this philosophy of cutting teacher pay and benefits and not having it effect students. Many of the posters that support the cuts to teacher pay also talk about reforms needed to get rid of bad teachers. I am in support of the reforms to make it easier to fire the poor performers. This is only a step in the right direction if the schools are able to hire more qualified teachers. Therefore we should be trying to make the pay and benefits attractive for educators to relocate to Nevada. By cutting teacher pay and benefits sends the message to future educators that they are not valued here. Make the reform that if a teacher receives an unsatisfactory review they return to probation. If a second bad review is earned then have the teacher transfer schools. If a 3 review is bad then fire the teacher. The transferring of schools would help eliminate personal bias from the equation. If you want to improve education in this state get rid of the bad and pay more for the excellent.
When is Horsford going to be made accountable for excepting payoff money from online gambling companies?
The utter waste in the educational system is terrible. Legions of administrators doing essentially nothing and earning high salaries. Giving more money to unaccountable school systems isn't the way to go. The Democrats could care less. Just keep kicking in those union dues. Now you know why the administrator's children go to private school.
chuck333:
He'll be made accountable for "excepting" money from online poker companies just as soon as the other 90 or so percent of the state legislature "excepts" accountability for doing the same. Including all of the republicans.
Is that "exceptable" to you, dope?
And then there's Patty Gibbons, chiming in with more rhetoric. He can't even cite a legitimate source for his bull today, so he refers to his own blog, even though doing so is in direct violation of the terms of service for this discussion community. I encourage the moderators at the Las Vegas Sun to revoke Mr. Gibbon's privileges for this website in accordance with the provisions set forth in the "Reader Agreement" specifically:
SPECIFIC TERMS OF SERVICES RELATED TO READER COMMENTS
By posting on LasVegasSun.com stories, blogs, or any other part of this site, you:
"Agree not to self-promote with links to your own blog or website, especially when such a link would be off-topic for the part of the site you're commenting on;"
I guess the rules just don't apply to you Pat.
There is no speaking sense to the conservative right. They have and continue to prove themselves to be for the rich. Lately in the news they are also showing themsevles to be the true bigots that their policies make them out to be. They are out only for themselves. People that are level headed are the majority, but we only have ourselves to blame because we do not make our opinions known during election time. We need to get rid of these republicans in office. Sandoval never should have been voted in as governor. So next election, get rid of these self righteous haters.