From Citizen Outreach:

By: Chuck Muth

HIGHER TAXES, HERE WE COME!

Legislators last year were sold on a bill (SB 154) which established an advisory committee to study ways to raise taxes for new school construction in Washoe County. Those options would be narrowed down and put on the ballot this November for a thumbs-up or thumbs-down by voters. This was clearly an effort to raise taxes, but legislators bought into it and the governor, despite his tax pledge and our entreaties not to, signed the bill.

Lo and behold, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported yesterday morning that “After nearly seven months of discussion, the School Construction and Revitalization Advisory Committee (has) narrowed down possible (tax) increases for the Washoe County School district” to a hike in the sales tax, a hike in the modified business tax, a hike in the government services tax or a hike in the real property transfer tax.or some combination of the above.

It should also be noted that what the advisory committee and the school district did here would be illegal if they were selling their product in the open market. It would have violated any number of truth-in-labeling laws and laws against “bait-and-switch.” Because this tax hike effort was sold to legislators and the governor last year as absolutely, positively critical in order to build NEW schools to relieve pressure on existing schools where class sizes were reportedly bursting at the seams.

But once the tax-hike enabling bill was passed by the 2007 Legislature and signed by the governor, the folks pushing this measure changed gears and decided not to pursue the tax hike to build NEW schools, but to use the revenue from whatever tax hike they selected to fix, repair and upgrade OLD schools. As the RGJ reported on Tuesday, “In March, the group agreed to focus on renovations for existing schools instead of finding ways to fund new construction.”

I guess this means that classes are no longer overcrowded and the “crisis” has past, huh?

But even the notion of fixing and repairing old schools is suffering from a bad case of mission creep, as Reno High School Principal Bob Sullivan told the RGJ last week he hoped to use some of the hoped-for $393 million of money from the hoped-for tax hike to buy new classroom “interactive whiteboards.” Now, could someone please explain how we went from building critically needed brand new schools to buying absolutely unnecessary brand new “interactive whiteboards”?

I didn’t make a big deal out of the governor violating his no new taxes pledge last year because the technical violation on this bill was minimal in the large scheme of things. But it just goes to show what happens when you let your guard down for even a minute and allow the tax-happy big government crowd an opportunity to sell you a bag of goods.

THE I-TUNES TAX

“A growing number of state politicians are proposing new laws to levy taxes on digital downloads, including music, video, and books, as a way to remedy budget pains,” reports CNET News this week. “Call it the iTunes tax.”

OK, here are the odds on which Nevada legislator will be the first to step up and propose an iTunes tax on Nevadans:

Sen. Dina Taxus: Even money
Sen. Dennis Nolan: 7-5
Sen. Valerie Weiner: 3-1
Sen. Maggie Carlton: 5-1
Sen. Mike Schneider: 7-1
Sen. Bob Beers: 1,000,000-1

Assemblywoman Sheile Leslie: 7-5
Assemblyman Ruben Kihuen: 3-2
Assemblyman Moises Denis: 2-1
Assemblywoman Francis Allen: 4-1
Assemblyman Marcus Conklin: 5-1
Assemblywoman Susan Gerhardt: 8-1

Place your bets! Place your bets!

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH

The Gibbons administration lost two more staffers last week, bringing the total number of folks who have been fired or driven insane by co-Chief-of-Staff Diane Cornwall to somewhere around the number of players on a typical college football team. In fact, so many staffers have left the Gibbons administration – either voluntarily or involuntarily – purportedly because of the co-Chief-of-Staff that we’ve had to invent a new phrase to describe the painful exodus: “Getting Cornwalled.”

So who will be next in the administration to get Cornwalled? Today’s odds are:

Mike Dayton: 7-5
Nick Vander Poel: 3-1
Jody Stevens: 7-1
Josh Hicks: 15-1
Andrew Clinger: 50-1
Gov. Jim Gibbons: Even money

WHAT ABOUT PENSION REFORM?

“In the latest round of budget cuts, it was decided to take $17.5 million out of a fund which had been set aside to cover an expected $3 billion-plus ‘unfunded liability’ Nevada taxpayers face in the state’s retirement benefits account for government employees in the future,” writes Nevada GOP Chairwoman Sue Lowden yesterday in her “The Lowden Line” blog. “It’s sort of like what the federal government does when it takes money from the Social Security trust fund for ongoing operations.”

Madame Chair goes on to urge the kind of pension reform for Nevada’s public employees that former Gov. Kenny Guinn advocated two legislative sessions ago (which the Legislature ignored) and which other states and municipalities have already adopted.

Most folks will think this to be a “dry” topic, but the state’s out-of-control pension system, if not fixed soon, could very well bankrupt the state no matter how well the economy bounces back in the months to come. So you should take a serious look at what the former Chairman of the Senate Taxation Committee has to say on the subject HERE

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

“The Clark County Democratic Party managed to pull off a convention do-over with a bare minimum of trouble. It just goes to show how well things work at the county party when the state party is running the show.”

- CityLife editor Steve Sebelius