Several games of political chicken converging at one intersection

Sun, May 11, 2008 (2:01 a.m.)

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As elected and unelected leaders try to reach an elusive consensus on how to tax the gaming industry to help education, several intersecting chicken contests among these various cocks of the walk and a few assertive hens could cause a spectacular crash or a breathtaking solution.

The engines started revving last week, with Steve Wynn trying to drive the industry agenda again after a political hiatus. Wynn’s plan made sense for both sides: The teachers would back off their 44 percent gross gaming tax increase they believe will qualify for the ballot but would still have to pass twice, making them wait years for the money. In return, the casinos would fork over increased room tax revenue for education, thus heading off an attempt to raise the gaming levy 3 percentage points.

Apocalypse denied. Initiative kaput. Happiness abounds.

Perhaps we will arrive at this fairy tale ending in which no one swerves off a bridge and a head-on collision is averted. But we are not there yet because these roosters often like cockfighting even more than a game of chicken.

And oh how they like to fight.

Long gone are the days when these oligarchs — or as Wynn is fond of calling them, “the guys” — used to sit around a boardroom table, decide whom to anoint and not have to worry too much about taxation. The botched 2003 gross receipts tax increase, proposed by the anointed Kenny Guinn, combined with Wynn’s Far East sojourns, Gondolier Numero Uno Sheldon Adelson’s Forbes list ascent and MGM Mirage chief executive Terry Lanni’s assertive leadership have rearranged the dynamic.

Gamers, gamers, where did the love go? Or at least the clenched-teeth tolerance?

Wynn and his education activist wife, Elaine, have not been this deeply enmeshed in politics for some time. Wynn’s political machine — and loud voice — often has moved the industry agenda despite his colleagues’ envy/disdain/fear of him. But when he started this ball rolling, as Harrah’s and Station and others went along, Adelson and Lanni started a Strip form of chicken with Wynn.

I am not sure which Lanni dislikes more intensely — the teachers union, which he has openly attacked as greedy and self-serving, or Wynn, with whom there has been long-term tension. As for Adelson, you get the impression he would have built the Palazzo even closer to Wynn’s eponymous property, perhaps even blocking the entrance, if the county would have sanctioned it.

So by the end of last week, neither had signed on to the deal, which had been further altered to garner Gov. No New Taxes’ support by including an advisory question to give Jim Gibbons cover.

The teachers have been playing their own game of chicken here since they proposed the initiative months ago. I think the union always expected the gamers to come to the table, although they may have underestimated Lanni’s fury at their proposal and the industry’s disparate viewpoints on taxing matters.

The teachers may well be able to get the signatures by May 20, but they still have no guarantee the state Supreme Court will allow it on the ballot. And they also may not want to endure the long-term consequences of a bloody campaign that would feature a “teachers are greedy and selfish” vs. a “gamers are greedy and selfish.”

The teachers have used this tactic before, back in 1990, when the union backed an initiative to tax corporate profits. In that contest, they succeeded in getting their enemies to blink and promise to support a business tax during the 1991 Legislature — the profits tax proposition already had qualified but was soundly defeated.

It was an imperfect solution, just as this one, if it happens, is destined to be. Remember all the political folks involved in this, too, with their varying agendas and potential gubernatorial campaigns playing out against a backdrop of an in-progress, elongated budget disaster. Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio have been meeting with gamers, and Mayor Oscar Goodman, who heads the convention authority board, has been involved.

I relish a peaceful ending to these games of chicken among the casino bosses and between the industry and the teachers union. Peace in our time — or at least before May 20 — might be the catalyst for an old alliance to become reinvigorated so we can stop worrying about who is paying too little and start focusing on who is paying nothing.

The gamers and teachers vs. the virtually untaxed business community? Now that’s a game of chicken I’d like to watch — again. Maybe this time the ending will be different.

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

By HelenWeils

5/11/08 at 8:35 a.m.

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Huh, Terry Lani, Brian's chosen one is upset with the teachers union for wanting to impose a
tax on the gamers?? Go figure! I thought he was the one that supported taxes on everyone else??
I SAY, NO NEW TAXES!!! Take the EXISTING ROOM TAX AND USE IT TO PAY FOR ROADS THAT ARE CLOGGED DUE TO GAMING. As for the whiney teachers union??
KISS MY GRITS!!!
By frenchie

5/12/08 at 1:44 p.m.

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Really? Kiss your grits? How nice. Now face facts:
1. We have classrooms that are bulging with students.
2. We are loosing far to many teachers because they can't afford to live in Las Vegas.
3. Choosing teaching as a career is not entering indentured servitude.
Get real. The taxation system in Nevada is out of whack, and none of the problems facing our city and state will be reliably repaired until someone in Carson City shows the intestinal fortitude necessary to implement the systemic change required.
Or follow Gibbon's advice: No new taxes. A simple solution for simple people.
By Ted_DeCorte

5/12/08 at 8:47 p.m.

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All Nevadans need to step up to the plate in funding necessary public services in our State. All businesses need to contribute to the tax base of our communities. Gaming though, as a privileged industry, is in a unique situation in that it owes that privilege to the largesse of Nevada government and local communities. Yes, the gaming industry provides the majority of jobs, directly or indirectly, particularly in southern Nevada, and a lifestyle for many that has contributed for many years to a stable and vibrant Nevada economy. Yet, gaming is also the reason for many of our communities’ ills – jammed thoroughfares, diminishing water supply, crowded schools, transient population, unhealthy lifestyles, skyrocketing real estate, and in some ways – crime.
Gaming did not purposefully cause these ills – although some ills seem to go hand-in-hand with the proliferation of this distinctive industry; and yes, Gaming has bestowed its munificence on a number of high– and low-profile community projects – and pays it taxes. The infrastructure, socially & physically, to support the development of a 300+ room hotel & casino is still sorely lagging, & in many cases lacking, let alone a 3,000 room hotel, casino or convention center. Gaming gurus must proactively integrate into their thinking - & funding - the impact of their mega-empires on the community at large. How do 7,000 new employees traverse the valley to their new jobs, and use up our resources, and impact our schools? How do 70,000 new tourists traverse and use up and impact our communities?
Businesses that create quality jobs should be encouraged and rewarded. At the same time, businesses that drain limited resources, strain community infrastructure, and remove “wealth” from our state (wealth that in most any other state would be taxed) to provide jobs and a quality of life for other communities, need to expand their obligation to the “social fiber” of our State.
Las Vegas is a “company town” in that there are not too many businesses thriving that do not have their “raison d'etre” linked to THE INDUSTRY. Without gaming, Las Vegas may have remained a medium sized borough, relatively mid-way between LA and Salt Lake on an uneventful highway. The gaming industry has made Las Vegas. Yet, Las Vegas has made the gaming industry. Las Vegas reshaped gaming into the “recreation of the masses”, and that defining attribute – created and tested in Nevada LEGALLY- has been exported successfully around the globe. Las Vegans have all been guinea pigs and beneficiaries in Gaming’s “Grand Experiment”. And as the Grand Experimenters continue to refine ways to part men and women with their recreational currencies, THE INDUSTRY - as well as other businesses that utilize our resources - owes Nevada.
By avatar

5/12/08 at 11:51 p.m.

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50% of Nevada's teachers could find work in other states over the next 3 years. The shortage of teachers nationwide is growing and, due to pathetic wages and student discipline issues, will only get worse.

When little Johnny and Mary do not have a classroom or a teacher, it will finally sink in to Nevada residents that the disfunction of the current tax system is intolerable.

Remember, Nevada gold mines produced over $5.6 billion dollars worth of minerals last year! They paid the state less than $100 million. As Ted mentions above, these industries that utilize our resources owe Nevada!
By HelenWeils

5/13/08 at 7:12 a.m.

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Hi, I'm Barack Obama, just call me BO.
Come on everyone, can't we just all get along? Kumbaya.
Just vote for me and I'll give you free health care forever. I'll let all of you illegal aliens "come on down!"
Yes, bring your pregnant wives and bring them on in to the emergency room to have those anchor babies and get on welfare! After all, those rich white people can get by on less just like my wife Michelle says.
It's high time the welfare state is expanded, after all, we have reparations to make to all of the decendents of slaves. Their ancestors
never got those reparations and it's high time their descendants were paid off!
I understand that when you raise the capital gains taxes that it will cut tax revenues but that's ok, because it's "fair" that those rich white people pay more of their income, after all, they can afford it.
I'll make sure to pull out of Iraq right away even if it puts Iran in control of our oil, but that's ok!
We're going to use renewable sources
like ethanol that cost more to make
in oil and pollutes more than oil and rusts out our gas tanks, but that's ok,
it's fair, after all, those rich white people can afford it.
By the way, I'll send our troops right over to Africa after we pull them out of Iraq to rescue Africa, they need it worse than we do.
Oh yeah, I'm going to renegotiate all of our Nafta agreements with Canada
they aren't paying enough taxes to us.
Aren't we just going to be one big happy family?? Kumbaya!
Your Prez, BO.