Which of these Republican candidates – Jim Gibbons, Joe Heck, Mike Montandon, Heidi Gansert, Brian Sandoval, Bill Raggio or Brian Krolicki – would be the strongest against Democrat Rory Reid in the Governor’s race general election next year?
Former Clark County Recorder Fran Deane pleaded guilty this week to three felony counts of “theft, misconduct of a public officer and unlawful commissions, personal profit and compensation of public officers.”
Deane, as it turns out, is not only a thief but a world-class liar. I hope Judge Valerie Vega sends yet another message to would-be public servants thinking of cashing in on their offices by giving Deane some serious jail time when she’s sentenced next January.
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
“(Sen. Harry Reid) took his first slap at one of his potential challengers — Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman Sue Lowden. The senator showed his shoot-from-the-hip-and-don’t-worry-if-it’s-accurate side to columnist Jill Lawrence of Politics Daily, who asked him about Lowden’s poll, which said she’d beat him by 6 percentage points if she ran. Reid answered, ‘I like Sue Lowden. Her husband and I are close friends. She couldn’t get elected to the state Senate. She was against mammograms for women.’
“Not truthful.
“Lowden was elected to the state Senate in 1992 in a heavily Democratic district. She ran again in 1996 but lost when the Culinary union used its muscle against her, because she and her husband, Paul Lowden, operated nonunion hotels.
“As for her being ‘against mammograms for women’ that was also an issue in 1996. Lowden voted against mandating insurance companies to cover mammograms for women, saying the cost would be too high. But charging ‘she was against mammograms for women’ isn’t honest.
“The senator should at least wait until she’s an announced candidate to start distorting her record. That’s just good manners.”
- Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Jane Ann Morrison, 8/15/09
THE SANDOVAL SWOON
“(Potential Republican gubernatorial candidate) Brian Sandoval can’t be beaten… The Nevada GOP is deliriously happy! They’ve got a five star candidate for 2010 that can lift their entire ticket in what will be a bad year for Dems. . . . (Democrat gubernatorial candidate) Rory (Reid) looks like a cadaver and Brian looks like a GQ model; guess where Nevada voters will be going next year? . . . No one beats this guy in a primary, or a general, no one. Jesus would come in 2nd…”
- Democrat blogger Mike Zahara, Watchdog Wag, 8/15/09
DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES?
From John Fund in Friday’s Political Diary:
“Nate Silver, a political statistician who runs a Web site that analyzes polling, earned something akin to guru status in progressive circles for his confident forecasts throughout last year’s campaign of an Obama victory. But the guru came bearing less welcome news to the Netroots Nation crowd. Mr. Silver said there’s now an 80% chance that Democratic losses in the House will range from 20 to 50 seats. At 40 seats, Democrats would lose control. In the Senate, he says, Democrats at best might pick up one seat but could potentially lose six.”
The GOP has NO CHANCE of winning enough seats to regain the majority unless it can defeat the likes of vulnerable freshman Democrat Rep. Dina Titus in Las Vegas. Fortunately, if Republican community banker John Guedry gets into the race, that just might be doable.
IT’S THE SPENDING, STUPID
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) released a new report this week which showed that Nevada’s generally low-tax/pro-business environment was a driving force behind our economic success from 1997 through 2007. As the Las Vegas Review-Journal noted in a story on Friday, ALEC found “that income taxes are more important to entrepreneurs than any other kind of fee or levy” when deciding whether or not to open or relocate a business here.
So it is almost unbelievable that in the middle of this recession, with jobs drying up faster than an unwatered Pahrump lawn in August, that Democrat Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, the far-Left anti-business loons at the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN), the mining industry, and some in the gaming industry all want to impose a corporate income tax on Nevada’s small businesses.
“Nevada doesn’t have a problem because it doesn’t tax enough,” said Jonathan Williams, Director of Tax and Fiscal Policy at ALEC. “It has a problem because it spent more than the tax revenue that came in. When the private sector doesn’t have cash flow, it doesn’t ask for more money like legislators can with taxpayers. It cuts expenses first. Legislators can’t expect taxpayers to pay the bill every time the government overspends in good years.”
Williams further noted that our neighbor to the West “has the nation’s highest income and sales taxes,” yet is darned near bankrupt.
“Broadening” the tax base and screwing small businesses won’t fix Nevada’s budget problems. Cutting non-essential government spending will fix Nevada’s budget problems.
What should be cut? Who knows? It’s been almost three years since Jim Gibbons was elected governor and Kim Wallin was elected Controller – and yet the state government’s checkbook STILL isn’t available for review by taxpayers on a public website so we can see for ourselves where the waste and non-essential spending is. What the hell are these two waiting for?
IS THERE A LAWYER IN THE HOUSE?
Nevada’s Legislature (thankfully!) only meets for roughly 120 days every other year. Let’s face it, they do enough damage as it is. Can you image the trouble we’d be in if those people were allowed to meet every year on a full-time basis. Oh, the horror!
Nevertheless, when not in session the Legislature still has found a way to continue making decisions on how to spend our money through a sub-committee of budgetary “cardinals” known as the Interim Finance Committee – IFC for short. The IFC continues to meet and make decisions every other month when the full Legislature is not in session.
There are 21 members on the IFC out of the full 63-member Legislature (and not ONE of them is a bona fide fiscal conservative!) – which means that when this body makes legislative decisions, it does so without 66 percent of those members who Nevada’s citizens elected to make those decisions.
Folks, if that’s not unconstitutional, I’ll eat a bug.
Over the past week, Nevadans watched as this rogue legislative body attempted to even further overreach its constitutional powers by infringing on the governor’s authority regarding oversight of the federal stimulus money. But rather than risk a constitutional challenge to the very existence of the IFC, the “cardinals” backed down and Gov. Gibbons got his way.
But maybe it’s time for Nevada’s citizens whose elected legislators aren’t members of the IFC to file a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of this body themselves.
Is there a conservative attorney out there, along with maybe some conservative law students over at Boyd, who would be willing to take up this effort? And while you’re at it, maybe look into the constitutionality of having two separate property tax cap rates, as well as charging banks a higher payroll tax rate than every other business in the state?
Doesn’t equal protection under the law apply in Nevada?
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“State government’s only legitimate role is to protect people’s rights, not to provide myriad personal services, not to subsidize lifestyles, not to interfere with commerce.”
- Orange County Register, 5/20/09
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