The teachers might topple gaming’s gods

By Jon Ralston

Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008 | 2 a.m.

So the state teachers union, with the frustrated determination of Sisyphus, is rolling the idea of a gaming tax increase up the hill again. And the casino lords, with the omnipotence of Greek gods, once again are watching for political gravity to take effect.

Sisyphus remains an enduring myth and an ever-useful metaphor for a cursed task. But the story is no more mythological than the idea of a substantial gaming tax increase, which always seems to roll back down the hill no matter who is doing the pushing.

The Nevada State Education Association seems perfect to play the Sisyphean role this time around, having had tax boulders roll up and down the proverbial hill for almost two decades. Be it a corporate income tax or an enhanced gaming levy, the teachers have been doomed by less than propitious timing and less than competent execution. But there the union was again Tuesday, declaring it would not be daunted by a judicial rewrite of its latest initiative and resuscitating the petition for a 3 percentage point boost in the gaming tax.

It’s natural to assume that once the gamers figure out a way to legally puncture the latest teachers’ offering, the tax ball will once again rest at the bottom of the hill. But 2008 could be different, thanks to a serendipitous set of circumstances, including a budget deficit, a generally cowed Democratic legislative leadership and an unintentional enabler by the name of Gov. Jim Gibbons, R-Northern/rural Nevada, who believes robbing from Clark County local governments and its tourism agency is the way to solve the state’s problems.

It’s hard not to sympathize with the teachers’ frustration after another hold-the-line session led by the No Tax Man and his GOP allies, with little support from the Take Us for Granted Caucus on the Democratic side. And with the onset of budget cuts that will move that line backward and disproportionately hurt Southern Nevada schools, it’s not surprising the teachers would throw up their hands and seek the path of most political but least popular resistance.

But the teachers are hampered by their lack of allies the AFL-CIO has never supported a gaming tax increase and the Culinary didn’t either. And now 226’s leaders surely would like to drop a boulder on the teachers union leaders after they fronted for the Clinton campaign in that presidential caucus lawsuit designed to eviscerate the Culinary’s influence. The teachers have few friends.

Maybe they can succeed in bringing the gamers to the table their petition is more tightly written this time and they can contrast theirs with the tripling of the tax proposed by attorney Kermitt Waters. But the gods do not easily negotiate with mortals, so I don’t see that happening, if history is a guide.

And yet the irony of the Olympian miscalculation these deities made by anointing Gibbons their earthly messenger once again becomes apparent as the Strip lords now must see him as the agent of their potential destruction. This is where short-term thinking has produced potential long-term problems.

Follow this bouncing boulder as it rolls back in time: Gaming generally protects bottom line, supports No Tax Man. No Tax Man keeps promise and transportation/education/health care infrastructure suffers. Economy worsens, so Gibbons, R-Northern/rural Nevada, alights on going after local government money (that is, Clark County cash). None of this helps teachers, who get more frustrated, and almost all of it creates bull’s-eye for gamers, who continue to give the governor public attaboys.

And here we are, with one Sisyphus, easy to deride, and lots of spectators, their vocal chords inoperable.

No rational or thoughtful person believes increased gaming taxes through the initiative process are the answer to the state’s problems. And to hear people chattering again about doing a tax study, so it can be quickly tossed aside after important decisions are again put off, is unbearable.

It’s the same, obnoxious cycle of vacuous rhetoric. Republicans say it’s all about cutting spending, but they won’t provide any real cuts. And Democrats say they want to fund education and other services at higher levels, but they won’t propose any tax increases.

So we are left with a governor who has now proved himself an avowed enemy of the South and lawmakers, with few exceptions, unwilling to take him on. So what choice do the teachers really have?

Thus we have the intersection of Greek and Nevada mythologies Sisyphus and the gaming tax and the first chance that fantasy may become reality.