EDITORIAL: Want a handout? Raise taxes - Opinion

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Feb. 08, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Want a handout? Raise taxes

And other economic nonsense now in vogue

Let's stop using the word "stimulus" to describe the overflowing septic tank that's seeping through the hallways of Congress. Its sole purpose isn't to stimulate the economy, but to beef up government budgets, purchase the loyalty of dependent constituencies and leverage even more spending by the drunken sailors who've run their state operations ashore.

That liberal federal lawmakers are willing to lead President Obama's full-court press for the debt-funded welfare giveaway isn't surprising. That they've brought state legislators onto the bandwagon is shamefully audacious.

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The Nevada Legislature has been in regular session for only one week, and already lawmakers are leaping to conclusions that not only do they know for certain what's inside the pork-laden monstrosity, but that the state will have to increase taxes to get its cut of the lard.

In a joint statement issued Wednesday, Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, and Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, said Gov. Jim Gibbons' public schools and higher education budgets need to be bolstered by at least $550 million to make Nevada eligible for up to $1.3 billion in federal handouts.

"In order to qualify for the money, we are going to have to change the governor's proposal," Sen. Horsford said.

Yeah, that's the ticket! For months, Nevada Democrats have been building opposition to the governor's budget, saying it needs an undetermined amount of additional revenue but never specifying that it will take tax increases to make the money magically appear.

But now comes salvation in the form of the federal stimulus -- scratch that -- "stabilization grants." Nationwide, states that overspent during better times this decade now have hats in hand, hoping for billions upon billions of dollars to augment teacher and professor salaries and benefits, subsidize health care for the middle class and provide cool makeovers for public buildings. That's a foundation for recovery if we've ever seen one.

Now the Democrats' pitch amounts to this: Instead of raising your taxes a ton now, we'll raise your taxes a lot now and a lot later, and your children can repay the federal government the balance -- plus two decades of interest -- when they grow up.

In a Friday conference call with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., state Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, sounded surprisingly conservative in pointing out that recession-ravaged Nevada doesn't have the dough Congress supposedly wants spent.

"We don't have funding, particularly for education," Sen. Raggio said in a berating tone, calling Congress' social engineering experiment a "so-called sound stimulus package."

"We can't be required to give what we don't have for funding."

"You are crying wolf before the wolf is at the door," Sen. Reid snarled back.

But the wolf certainly is on the prowl. The Legislature's majority Democrats won't let Gov. Gibbons' two-year, $6.17 billion budget stand. And if Sen. Reid can offer help in getting the tax increases they need to avoid state worker pay cuts, layoffs and university system cuts, he'll do it.

Sen. Horsford deserves some credit for at least pointing out the budgetary burdens that would be created by taking federal funding.

"We need to ensure that the funding is there once the stimulus is gone," he said. "But I have not heard from anyone in the private sector that we will get back to a 2007 economy anytime soon."

Exactly. This isn't a sweet deal for Nevadans. It's a deal with the devil, one that takes state spending to economically unsustainable levels and ensures budget calamities become a biennial affair.

Gov. Gibbons' communications director, Daniel Burns, nailed it when he said Democrats were using a "scare tactic" to justify their desire to raise taxes. "All these numbers are subject to interpretation, and our budget office is discussing them. Some of this stuff changes every day."

Unfortunately, Nevada Democrats' cries for increased spending never change.

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Please enter your name Name: Please enter your email Email: Please enter a comment COMMENTS : (word count limit is 300) You have reached the maximum number of words allowed Current Word Count: Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background. patrick wrote on February 08, 2009 06:24 PM: Hey hey Patrick You musta missed the last 8 years of the anti-Christ. You know the one, he talked of Jesus while he bombed and maimed. He talked of compassion while the masses burned and died. He spoke of freedom and equality while he tortured and imprisoned. Your messiah just left, and maybe you might get the hint and follow him. "And he will come riding a pale horse (Cheney), and he will proclaim Jesus his God while throwing the son of man into the flame, and he will maim the English language and smile like Kilroy, and he will be among you for 7 years, and 7 months, and 77 days until I will cast him out" Ecclesiates 20:09 Hey Patrick wrote on February 08, 2009 05:36 PM: You must have missed the memo. Your little messiah says we all gotta get together make dem changes. He's gotta pay off unions, nationalize business and industry, take control financial institutions, pay slave repatrations, replace the military with a national security force, grant amnesty to illegals, turn schools into indocrination centers, set up camps for dissidents, pack the courts, bannish mean old conservative talk radio, legalize drugs, quit fighting the noble terrorist, walk on water and turn it into booze, save the planet from global warming, harness hot air for the new energy source, collect all personal guns, replace doctors with bureaucrats, declare the constitution outdated. Yada, yada, yada. On the seventh month he will proclaim himself our Beloved Leader for Life and rest. RHG wrote on February 08, 2009 04:32 PM: patrick wrote on February 08, 2009 01:46 PM: RHG: Anytime you want to compare the number of Americans killed by "terrorists" during the terms of any president I say "bring it on". And I'll tell you what, I'll spot you the Americans killed on 911, AND STILL the Americans killed by "terrorists" or any other "ists" you can think of were GREATER under bush than under Clinton. And, I'll tell you what, you compare ANY spending by ANY Democrat, to the money bush spent in Iraq ALONE, and bush STILL holds the record for spending. 2.3 TRILLION, and that don't count defense spending of 650 BILLION. ---------- The first part of your post is just and flat out ridiculous. We all know that alot of Americans were killed by terrorists under Bush. But, you and other Democrats act as if this was just some new problem that popped up under Bush completely absolving Clinton of any responsibility. And the fact you put the word terrorist in quotes makes me believe that you somehow don't believe there are such things as terrorists, just like the other poster who uses the term "so-called terrorist". You Democrats can't possibly be this out of touch with reality can you? And comparing military spending under Bush with military spending under say the Roosevelt administration during WWll is not fair either. What would Roosevelts spending on warring be in todays dollars? KD wrote on February 08, 2009 03:30 PM: Dear Jen -- "Now it's time to try another way and they're screaming and fighting. Sorry -- you lose. It may not work..." Yes, we all lose, Jen, because this is not "another way". This is the SAME way the Congress has acted for the last three decades. This financial disaster did not start in the last eight years. It started when Congress mandated unfunded rules and regulations for The Great Society. It started when the feds decided that states should not determine their own fates, but mandated federal rules on education, land, housing, driving, drinking, voting, and marriage and built huge federal bureaucracies to enforce these new rules. How big do you want the federal government to grow? How much do you want bureaucrats in Washington, D. C. to manage, monitor, and direct every aspect of your life? patrick wrote on February 08, 2009 02:32 PM: To Helen, you know, I have to agree with you, Helen. You make a lot of sense. We (government employees) are the only ones that will see a benefit from this stimulous. I think it's time we agreed to Gov. Gibbons pay cut to help out during these tough times. Obama wrote on February 08, 2009 02:28 PM: What happened to kumbaya? Hey, I won! Get used to doing it my way. That's the kind of bi-partisanship I was talking about. Zipper wrote on February 08, 2009 02:17 PM: If the Republican Congress during Clinton's term had been doing their jobs instead of investigating what was behind Bill's zipper perhaps they could have addressed the socalled terrorist problem. By the way did Bushy ever catch bin laden like he promised? HELENWEILS wrote on February 08, 2009 02:10 PM: You can put this mortgage meltdown directly on the books of Parasite DemoRats. Barny Franks and his pals demanded that 50% mortgages underwritten by Fanny and Freddie were for people who couldn't afford the mortgages and had less than steller credit. Then under Bill Clinton they allowed them to be packaged as mortgage backed securities. Wall Street sold them around the world. When people couldn't afford the payments they just walked. And the downward spiral started and we took the world with down with us. Then we dumped a trillion into the banks. Now we're going to dump another trillion in some make work government employee jobs. John Ensign had a good plan that would have rewarded taxpayers who HAD paid their mortgages with 4% mortgages which would have lowered payments by $450 a month on average. Another Republican proposal would have given everyone a payroll tax cut normally about 7.5% which would have had an immediate effect of putting more money in working people's pockets. But, OF COURSE, the Dummycrats voted those out in favor of some pork projects, more government intervention and jobs for the public employees and unions. The only ones that will see any benefits are government employees. All we'll see is THE BILL! MORONS! patrick wrote on February 08, 2009 01:46 PM: RHG: Anytime you want to compare the number of Americans killed by "terrorists" during the terms of any president I say "bring it on". And I'll tell you what, I'll spot you the Americans killed on 911, AND STILL the Americans killed by "terrorists" or any other "ists" you can think of were GREATER under bush than under Clinton. And, I'll tell you what, you compare ANY spending by ANY Democrat, to the money bush spent in Iraq ALONE, and bush STILL holds the record for spending. 2.3 TRILLION, and that don't count defense spending of 650 BILLION. RHG wrote on February 08, 2009 01:21 PM: Republicans also increased the absolute number of regulations; THE VAST MAJORITY OF THEM COMING FROM INVENTING A NEW CABINET DEPARTMENT CALL THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY. ----------- Well, maybe if Bill Clinton had been paying as much attention to what was going on in this country concerning Islamic extremists as he was in the White House intern pool things would have played out different in this country and Bush wouldn't have needed any excuse to create another beaucracy. Bill Clinton did afterall have a hint there was a problem after the attack on the WTC in '93. And to say Democrats don't spend money on things like "war" is absurd. Read All Comments