By DR. LARRY MOSES
No one asked me but… I have just returned from a 4100-mile trip. I was as far east as Michigan.
It was a very wet trip. I saw more rain in the seventeen days I was gone than I have in the last ten years here in Moapa Valley. The first rain fell just North of Cedar City on the tenth day of May. The last rain was seventeen days later as we left Richmond, Utah. I believe it rained every day, or at least it seemed that way.
We did have the adventure of riding out a hailstorm in Nebraska and it was so much fun, we did it again in Iowa. It had been over forty years since I had that experience and while I was sure I was going to lose my windshield, the locals seemed to have no such fear.
During the storm in Nebraska I locked on to the taillights of the truck in front of me as the natives showed no interest in slowing down, much less stopping.
In Iowa, the storm was so bad that traffic actually came to a standstill. We sat in the car at the side of the Interstate 80 as hail pelted the car. It was at this time a tornado was ripping apart the town of Joplin, Missouri hundreds of miles from where we were.
I generally return from my excursions to report the highest gas prices I found were right here in the valley. That is not the case this time. The highest gas prices belonged to the President’s home state of Illinois where prices ranged up to over $4.50 a gallon.
My short stay in this state left me less than impressed. The sales tax was nearly fourteen percent. Folks, I know this is little consolation, but taxes in the Midwest make us look like we are not taxed at all. Don’t get me wrong, I like it that way. However, this may go a long way in explaining the thinking of our present federal administration, which is dominated by men from Illinois.
No one asked me but… The Governor and the Republican legislators blinked. They were staring down the Democrats with their proposed $781 million dollar tax cuts and demands for reforms… and they blinked.
The Democrats didn’t get their $7.1 billion dollar budget, but they never really believed they would to begin with, for there was never that much money available.
The final money settlement was $4 million more that the Republicans wanted to spend and $9 million less than the Democrat’s first budget proposal.
No matter how you want to spin this, the Republicans blinked.
The Governor placed himself and his party in an untenable position when he insisted that he would support no new taxes and then included over $700 million of old taxes that were scheduled to sunset in 2011.
The first President Bush made the same mistake when he stood before the American people and said, “Read my lips. No new taxes.”
One must never put himself in a position where he cannot bargain to minimize damage. When the Nevada Supreme Court ruled that the Governor could not rob local governments of funds to balance the State budget, they did the Governor a great favor. I am suspicious that the ex-Federal Judge was counting on a rescue from the courts or maybe even had a hand in making the decision he felt could take him off the hook. While the Governor was able to get a tax break for seven out of ten Nevada businesses, the $60 million he was able to sunset was a mere drop in the bucket compared to the $620 million that will continue.
What did the Governor get in the compromise? Not very much. The business tax adjustment as stated above. The education reforms the governor wanted for the most part will not be enacted this legislative session. He did not get the bill to end social promotion and his voucher plan will not be approved.
While the Governor and Republicans are proud of the fact that they eliminated tenure in K-12 education, one must wonder how this was a victory since there never was any tenure in K-12 education.
No teacher in Clark County presently has tenure, all teachers work on a year-to-year contract. Higher education is still looking at a 15% cut but they will make that up with an increase in tuitition.
The “last in first out” (LIFO) provisions of reduction in teacher work force will have little effect since for the most part your best teachers are those with experience. The only scary thing about this is this will become the “highest paid the earliest out” (HPEO). Anyone who believes that this will not take place also believes the “trickle down theory of economics works, unicorns exist, and when the government says we are here to help, they are actually here to help.
NRS 391.321 already list over twenty factors that can be and should be considered during a reduction in force and seniority is only one of them.
Outside education, the Governor was even less successful. While he was able to reduce taxes on Nevada business to the tune of $60 million, he was not able to get any relief in the prevailing wage law, collective bargaining, or construction defect lawsuits. However, the most important issue is that no fundamental change was made in the tax structure so two years from now we will be looking at the same problems.
Thought of the week…“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.”
– Robert McCloskey
