No sympathy for those who don’t pay fair share

Greg Grant, Las Vegas

Monday, Feb. 21, 2011 | 2:02 a.m.

A businessman, a friend of mine, recently exhorted all of his friends to go out and buy. I can’t. As a public school teacher, my pay is about to be cut 5 percent, and I have to spend another $13,000 to do postgraduate work in history (I already have my master’s) so I can nearly make back what I’m about to lose. By the way, the $13,000 is most of the money I saved up over the years for a down payment on a house.

I’m sad to say that I’m struggling to be sympathetic to the Southern Nevada business community. The Chamber of Commerce has been beating the heck out of public education for 15 years. Further, by and large, small-businessmen have been supporting a Republican Party that is largely responsible for the economic mess the country faces.

Nevada’s fiscal problem is not particularly complex. It’s been studied to death over the past 15 years, and the conclusions are nearly all the same: Our state’s fiscal structure is woefully unstable and we need a broader tax structure to support, for lack of a better term, civilization. However, the business community’s response has always been to attack the messenger, whomever the particular consulting firm was, and accuse them of being partisan stooges.

And despite having nearly the lowest taxes in the nation, large numbers of Southern Nevada businessmen still managed to undercapitalize and have gone bankrupt. Well, when the business community, especially the Chamber of Commerce, finally steps up to support a tax structure that doesn’t leave Nevada looking like a second-rate nation, my colleagues and I will become some of business’ biggest cheerleaders. Until then, “you reap what you sow.”