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.

Highlights:

• At the beginning of the year, Government represented 12.02% of Nevada’s jobs.
• Although it is just a small portion of overall jobs, it provided 69% of the new jobs created during 2007.
• Nevada added 5,800 government jobs and 2,600 private-sector jobs during 2007.
• Statewide, government jobs paid the highest average wages, beating construction and mining, high tech and medicine.

These numbers are on page 3 of the Economy In Brief. Subsequent pages break out individual cities and counties. Most of the government growth was local government employees in the Las Vegas metropolitan statistical area.