An important moment

Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011 | 2:01 a.m.

Nevada’s Legislature convenes Monday with a full slate of important issues that will consume lawmakers and Gov. Brian Sandoval for the next several months.

There’s a budget shortfall of roughly $2 billion, and legislative leaders are clashing with Sandoval, who is holding to his no-new-taxes pledge, over how to deal with it.

As we have noted, Sandoval’s budget plan would make significant cuts and shift state responsibilities onto the counties to solve the shortfall. The result would mean significant reductions for education, health care programs like Medicare and social services, which already face significant challenges. Democrats, who control the Legislature, have started pushing back on the governor’s plan because they fear that state services will be crippled by the magnitude of the cuts.

There has been some talk of a compromise plan that would raise some taxes to mitigate the situation, but that won’t be easy. It will take a few Republican votes to get the two-thirds majority to pass an increase and overcome an expected veto, and so far, Republicans are largely lining up behind the governor, holding the no-new-taxes banner.

The concern over taxes is troubling because it misses a larger point for lawmakers. For years, the state hasn’t adequately funded education and other social services, and Nevada has consistently seen poor rankings in many surveys on schools and other services. So what’s acceptable? More cuts? Worse performance?

This isn’t a matter of high taxes or a bloated government simply performing better, as some conservatives have argued. By any reasonable standard, Nevada’s taxes are relatively low, government is small, and the state hasn’t done enough to provide for schools and other vital services.

But conservatives say a poor economy is no time to raise taxes. (As if there ever is a time.) What they fail to acknowledge is that many businesses operate in Nevada virtually untaxed and that the quality of services here suffers because the tax structure doesn’t bring in enough money. Big chains enjoy Nevada’s low tax rates — yet they don’t pass those savings on to consumers. Instead, they ship their profits to their out-of-state headquarters.

The Legislature has done several studies on taxes and the conclusions are all essentially the same — the state has to broaden the tax base to bring in enough money to adequately fund education and other services. Unfortunately, those studies have been relegated to collect dust. There has never been the political will to fix it correctly. In the past, governors and lawmakers have done just enough to get the state through the next two-year budget cycle, and Nevadans have lived with the consequences.

That can’t be acceptable this year. There will have to be cuts, but that can’t be the only solution. If lawmakers want a reason why, they should look back to the early ’90s, when the state budget was cut. It took about a decade before funding returned to where it was. In the meantime, access to vital services was hampered and the state suffered.

This year, the state’s leaders have to deal with the real issues. The difficulty, of course, will be the time. Lawmakers are being asked to make momentous decisions, including redrawing election boundaries, in the next 120 days. That’s going to take a collegial spirit and a lot of bipartisan work. It’s going to take leadership that refuses to push off the hard decisions.

Nevada can’t wait any longer.