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.

Check out this report/proposal from the Nevada Policy Research Institute. It concludes Nevada’s tax structure is, in fact, too volatile, and recommends fixes other than simply increasing taxing and spending. The study suggests a flat consumption tax encompassing all transactions, at a lower rate, would reduce volatility, and also recommends some common-sense measures to make Nevada local government unions more interested in the mission of government.

As Nevada’s politicians gear up for a special session to reduce its plans for government spending down to the level of its tax revenue, the Las Vegas Sun this morning profiled politicians who want to raise taxes. Assemblywoman Peggy Pierce told the reporter:

We have the smallest government in the country and it’s not even close.

This is a whopper of a lie. Nevada has an average sized state-and-local government, although because it shifts a large portion of its government funding onto visitors, Nevada residents pay less than other states’ residents. But Nevada’s government spending, in study after study, is average.

Assemblywoman Pierce has been lying about stingy government in Nevada since she was elected. That’s not news. The more striking aspect of this story is the question it poses about the media’s responsibility to give Assemblywoman Pierce a platform to lie without any fact-checking.

Should the Las Vegas Sun’s reporter David McGrath Schwartz have corrected Pierce’s prevarication?

No doubt the Confused Wing of Nevada’s political and press corps will again complain that we need to raise taxes in Nevada, rather than do what all the other states are doing (which is reducing spending in line with revenue).

• Proud socialists PLAN in Reno
• even prouder socialists Center for Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington
• Two democrat Nevada Assemblymen

as saying the Nevada has the largest budget deficit of any US state.

Paragraph three does, correctly, yet briefly, note that the gap is calculated by comparing revenue forecasts with what government thinks it needs.

In Nevada’s case, the legislature is planning to increase spending to a level 20% higher than our current revenue.

Meanwhile, our revenue is going to be around 10% less than current levels. 20% more plus 10% less equals a 30% budget gap, America’s largest.

Nevada has the largest budget gap because Nevada has the most unrestrained, irresponsible legislature of any state.

Here’s a reality-based look at Nevada’s actual revenue shortfall – sixteen states have it worse than us.

If you don’t believe what I and others have been saying about Nevada having the largest proportional budget hole, The Wall Street Journal says it’s true – just click on the map

The Journal’s article and chart actually rank Nevada’s tax shortfall as relatively mild, compared to many other states… at 6.5-percent, 16 states have a worse revenue shortfall than we do.

The data does rank Nevada’s legislature as one of the most irresponsible in America. When Nevada’s revenue started tanking, our legislature increased spending by draining all our savings and giving employees an average 6% raise last July. And our legislature plans on increasing spending again in three months – alot.

As a result, Nevada leads the nation in what the Wall Street Journal calls “Projected 2010 Gap as Percentage of FY2009 General Fund” and what Ralston more cleverly calls the “largest proportional budget hole”.

If our Legislature had acted responsibly, and trimmed spending when revenue flattened out instead of increasing spending, we would have an average problem on our hands. This is especially clear in retrospect, but should give the Legislature pause before raising taxes.

Remember, a “budget” is merely a plan to spend… or in Nevada’s recent years, a plan to overspend.