Columnist Jon Ralston: Round and round on revenues

Jon Ralston hosts the public affairs program "Face to Face" on Las Vegas ONE and also publishes the Ralston Report. His column for the Sun appears on Sundays and Wednesdays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or by e-mail at [email protected]

CARSON CITY -- It's a hell of a way to run a state.

And they keep doing it session after session after session. This isn't just, to borrow the Berraism, deja vu all over again, it's like watching an endless reel of "Groundhog Day."

First there is talk about how tight the budget is and how stupidly the tax system is set up.

Then after much jabbering, most of it in private, no tax policy is articulated.

Then, as the teachers union calls for action, a small cadre of lobbyists and legislators, along with the governor, cobble together a melange of taxes and/or fees and call it a solution. Lawmakers slurp at the newly created trough for some pork scraps, the teachers lament the lack of real money and someone in the media writes that this is just a Band-Aid.

Here we go again.

I wonder when someone is going to wake up and realize that affixing a bandage to an infection doesn't cure it. The ailment doesn't just go away.

And this affliction -- the fastest-growing state in the country outstripping a narrow tax structure -- has existed for more than a decade (just read the tax study from more than 10 years ago).

Gov. Kenny Guinn was the first chief executive to have the courage to talk about the problem in his initial State of the State. But his rhetoric in 1999 was pared down by his timorous political crew, who have spent the ensuing two years slicing off various parts of the governor's anatomy.

The final act of his political intimates, who have induced Guinn to adopt 1,761 tax positions since his first State of the State, was a castration of the man who could have started this session with a plan but now was left Friday hyping the usual bunch of silliness (business transaction fees, a rental car rebate scheme).

But this was elective surgery by the governor, so now he has no one to blame but himself, although he should ask his political geniuses this question: As they have been whispering to lawmakers and the governor that it would be suicide to raise taxes two sessions in a row, what kind of act is it to run for re-election having promised to raise taxes after re-election?

It's never been done before, I acknowledge that. But Guinn, who has told people that the second bill of the 2003 Legislature will be the new revenue package, might as well start erecting billboards declaring: "Re-elect Gov. Kenny Guinn. I am committed to raising your taxes."

But who am I to argue with those who anointed the Anointed One? Surely, they must know what they are doing to put the governor in this position.

With teachers and parents disconsolate, social service providers depressed and higher education backers disgusted, I wonder if there will be room for a happy mayor to consider the race he really doesn't want to run? Or will there now be an opening for an ambitious, female county commissioner whose last name is the same as the governor's first?

There are no heroes in this story, though, save perhaps one -- state Sen. Mark James. He is the Republican maverick who has bucked his party the entire session, first with his death penalty moratorium proposal and then by decrying the Band-Aid nonsense and trying to enact a real, broad-based business revenue source. (Hmmm -- could he be the Jim Jeffords of Nevada? Calling Harry Reid.)

But now poor James has been put under the same knife the Guinnites used on their man. And instead of having his voice become higher pitched, though, it is now relatively quiet.

And the legislative Democrats have abdicated their role in this debate -- perhaps until the eleventh hour. All session long, their leaders and lawmakers have decried the lack of money for education and yet have not shown any vision to come up with their own plan. Their mantra -- "We won't leave until something is done" -- rings hollow when they have not had the foresight or fortitude to present any ideas. Thus, they have ceded the ground to James -- and now to Guinn.

Have no fear, though: I'm sure there will be no tax initiatives in the interim. I'm sure the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce will solve all the tax problems, as it has promised. And I'm sure the gaming industry, which is interested mostly in ensuring its own insulation from ill-advised populist campaigns, will sit idly by and not react. And I'm sure the governor will talk about a new revenue plan during his campaign for re-election -- unless, of course, someone actually runs against him.

As I said, a hell of a way to run a state.

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