Veteran journalist Ed Vogel wraps up the 2011 Nevada Legislative Session.
Vogel notes “Nevada delivered a balanced budget while taxes stayed the same” but can’t fail to note that both candidates for Nevada Governor last year promised that they would not renew taxes scheduled to automatically expire. The promise – which appears to have been what most Nevadans wanted, if the polls that drove the major candidates’ campaigns were right – was not kept.
PLAN has ranked Nevada’s elected officials. The average grade is a D. Here’s the full story.
July 13th, 2009
Congressman Tom McClintock offered remarks in Washington, D. C., on Friday to the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Pacific Research Institute that clearly illustrate why California is facing such a large fiscal mess. His beginning joke is so funny because it is so true:
“I know that everybody likes to poke fun at California – but I can tell you right now that despite all of its problems, California remains one of the best places in the world to build a successful small business. All you have to do is start with a successful large business.”
Here is the rest of the speech:
Laugh if you will, but let me remind you that when these policies finish wrecking California, there are still 49 other states we can all move to – and yours is one of them. I should also warn you of the strange sense of déja-vu that I have every day on the House floor as I watch the same folly and blunders that wrecked California now being passed with reckless abandon in this Congress.
We passed a “Cash-for-Clunkers” bill the other day – we did that years ago in California.
Doubling the entire debt every five years? Been there. Increasing spending at unsustainable rates? Done that. Save-the-Planet-Carbon-Dioxide restrictions? Got the T-Shirt.
To understand how these policies can utterly destroy an economy and bankrupt a government, you have to remember the Golden State in its Golden Age. A generation ago, California spent about half what it does today AFTER adjusting for both inflation and population growth. Continue reading
Congressional Democrats (along with their Presidents and President candidates)
Mazzeo poses in front of her attorney's collection of... WHAT?
Law enforcement has thoroughly investigated and dismissed the claims by part-time cocktail waitress Chrissy Mazzeo (warning: the link goes to boudoir photos of Mazzeo that she is publishing on the internet to further boost her career) that Governor Gibbons hit on her, thus causing her concern for her welfare.
So why is the Las Vegas Sun reporting the story again today, complete with a six month old photo misleadingly presented as current?
The best part was the photo they ran, which covered about a quarter page.
You can see the photo to the right.
The best part of this photo is what it says about Ms. Mazzeo’s attorney. Kudos to my wife, who pointed out the wall behind the pair. Does her attorney specialize in torture?
As you can see, the photo has been removed from the Sun’s website version of today’s story.
Great article about a large, non-existent area of central Nevada…
Millions of X-Files fans believe the truth may be “out there,” but more likely it’s concealed inside Area 51′s Strangelove-esque hangars—buildings that, though confirmed by Google Earth, the government refuses to acknowledge.
The problem is the myths of Area 51 are hard to dispute if no one can speak on the record about what actually happened there. Well, now, for the first time, someone is ready to talk—in fact, five men are, and their stories rival the most outrageous of rumors.
Great Review Journal editorial today:
…despite the fact both population growth and school enrollments have leveled off — even the “maintain services at current levels” spending Carson City Democrats apparently consider “as low as they’ll go” represents 17 percent more spending than the budget enacted by the Legislature two years ago — 26 percent more than actual spending of about $6.3 billion.
For months, the bureaucrats and Democratic legislators have been making a show of tearing their hair, weeping and moaning about “cuts,” lambasting Gov. Gibbons for submitting a budget that will supposedly leave schools and hospitals no choice but to close their doors, leave children and old people to starve in the streets, etc.
What cuts? Where are the cuts? Most Nevada taxpayers are figuring out how to tighten their belts and live on less. But a 17 percent spending increase — a revenue increase of 37 percent over what’s now flowing in to state coffers, new or increased taxes to generate an extra $2.16 billion, to a new record income level of $7.96 billion — is the minimum lawmakers will consider?
Yes, state government’s general fund actually spent $6.3 billion from the GF over the last two years, but the revenues were only $5.8 billion. Incidentally, that is just about the same amount of revenue we received in the prior biennium. For the coming biennium, the latest estimates (which are unofficial guesstimates from the Legislature, who has a long history of manipulating guesstimates for political purposes) say we will collect $5.1 billion, plus about $250 million from the new room tax, and about $400 million from the federal stimulus money.
So the actual revenue decline (assuming the federal stimulus and room tax) with no further tax increases is less than 1%. Those are the facts, pure and simple. Our population is barely growing now and the CPI is also very low.
To say a 37% increase in revenue is imposing harsh cuts is only possible in the delusional world of government spending. The problem centers on the fact that the government (particularly the state legislature) increases spending on autopilot by granting raises and expanding benefits every year, and any reduction in those automatic increases is falsely described as a draconian cut. The majority of the political media – Ralston and Sebelius – make no bones that they passionately desire more government, so they repeat the false descriptions from legislative leaders, and portions of their audience too lazy to check the math buy into and repeat it.
So now legislative leaders say it’s a cut if further increases are not implemented. There are a lot of private businesses that would be real happy to have only a 1% reduction in revenues and the spending adjustments needed to balance the books would be much easier than what they are facing now.
Oh, did we mention 20% of the employees at the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce just LOST THEIR JOBS!
Nothing promotes volunteerism like paying kids to volunteer, no matter how much you drive your grandchildren into debt to do it.
A definition of volunteerism George Orwell himself might have thought up…
Bill Raggio, who calls people who don’t want to hike taxes “John Birchers”, is furious. So are all of Nevada’s political media employees.
Governor Gibbons has kept all his promises – he deferred to a vote of the people on a tax hike but refused to actually sign the bill. Tax hikers – the usual gang who believes there’s just never enough government – had been counting on his signature as part of their political cover. “See,” they were planning on explaining to angry constituents, “even Jim Gibbons was in favor.”
And the Media-Socialism-Influence Peddling Complex is very, very angry.
Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons is reportedly questioning the wisdom of Nevada grabbing it’s ankles to receive the full thrust of ObPeRe‘s stimulus package.