Columnist Jon Ralston: Guinn must decide who'll pay for growth

Jon Ralston, who publishes the Ralston Report, writes a column for the Sun on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or by e-mail at [email protected].

This afternoon at Mandalay Bay, three people will fulminate against tax initiatives slated for the November ballot.

Two of them -- Nevada Resort Association Chairman Mike Sloan and Chamber of Commerce boss Bob Forbuss -- will rightly be seen as shilling for special interests threatened by Joe Neal's gaming tax plan and the teachers union's corporate tax proposal, respectively. But the third man in the ring, Gov. Kenny Guinn, placed in the unenviable position of refereeing the incipient revenue/spending debate, has a very different interest: his own and, presumably, the public's.

Sources report that Guinn will make his strongest statement yet about the pair of tax plans just before Forbuss and Sloan make their pitches against them. Oh, there will be skepticism, and not just because the venue is being provided by the Nevada Taxpayers Association, a watchdog group. But this is history repeating itself.

Exactly 10 years ago Gov. Bob Miller helped scuttle a teachers union tax initiative to pave the way for a legislative package that ultimately created a business tax -- part of the gaming industry's never-ending quest for a broad-based tax. The fact that Guinn appears to be following a casino industry agenda just as his predecessor did before him surely will rankle some observers who, for some reason, don't believe the public interest and the Strip's interest could ever coincide.

But that would be unfair -- or at least partly so. Guinn, to his credit, began this discussion during his State of the State speech last year. He told anyone who was listening carefully, as he announced $250 million in cuts, that growth was not paying for growth and that he was going to come up with a plan to fix it. Now, Guinn frets, the Neal and teachers initiatives will gum up the works and probably spark an all-out political conflagration that will incinerate any chance he has to come up with a reasonable plan for legislative consideration.

So the governor will call on Neal and the teachers to call off their petition drives while also offering them a seat at the revenue table. Guinn will warn them that he plans on traveling the state and campaigning against their initiatives if they would rather fight than sit.

Guinn is asking a lot from both Neal and the teachers. Both opposed his election and will have little reason to trust him. But he also will not be able to have it both ways. Guinn, after telling folks behind the scenes just as Miller did in 1990 that more revenue is needed, cannot be publicly coy for much longer. If he doesn't commit to Neal and the teachers to extract money from gaming and put more money into education -- which he actually does have on his drawing board -- they will not relent.

The crisis is coming, as Guinn knows and an NRA study found: "Nevada residents will soon have to face the difficult political problem of cutting back on accustomed levels of public services or increasing taxes, or both." That's not an excerpt from the new study the NRA released today -- it's from one with the same title, "The Fiscal Impact of Population Growth in Nevada," the gamers paid for nine years ago when the last tax debate was occurring and they were trying to persuade lawmakers to follow through with the business tax.

Not much has changed in a decade, except the problem has become more acute. And only one man can make it happen this time in a comprehensive (yes, that means business will have to pay) and politically palatable (yes, that means gaming will have to pony up, too) fashion. Judging by his remarks today, Guinn might just be that man.

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