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EDITORIAL
A real tax study
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For more than two decades, legislative Democrats have complained that Nevada's budget woes are a result of an outdated and unstable tax code. They've claimed that taxes need to be "restructured" to spare state services from future drastic spending cuts.
Of course, they've done nothing to accomplish this. Instead, they've raised existing taxes and avoided any formal debate on "revenue reform" -- thus revealing the term as political code for massive tax increases.
Enter the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a fiscally conservative think tank. This week, the group answered the challenge from Democrats, proposing reforms in how Nevada raises money for its general fund, which covers education, social services, welfare and public safety. And it did it in a way that's revenue-neutral.
NPRI proposes cutting the state sales tax rate from 6.85 percent to 3.5 percent (a figure that doesn't include county sales tax collections), and expanding its application to all goods, including food, and services, including utilities. The plan would eliminate the punitive payroll tax, which is a disincentive for employers to create new positions and give current workers pay raises, and the insurance premium tax.
According to NPRI's projections, this restructuring would produce about the same amount of revenue over the next two years as the state's current tax code. NPRI's analysis also gets at the heart of the state's budget problems -- out of control spending -- by suggesting a new budgeting process and spending caps.
Legislators are scared to death to discuss such ideas around an election. They created an unelected, unaccountable "study" panel -- the Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group -- to make budget recommendations and reorganize the state's priorities. All signs point to a very expensive wish list coming from this tax-hiking front.
NPRI also proposes establishing a bureaucracy to provide some rebates to all taxpayers to ease the new burden put on paying for life's necessities. That sounds needlessly complicated. If the state has to give some money back, it shouldn't collect it in the first place.
But NPRI's study (which can be read at www.npri.org) is of great value because it launches the debate Democrats should have started years ago -- just in time for the primary and general elections. Voters should ask legislative candidates for their positions on NPRI's suggestions.
If they reject the ideas out of hand, it's a signal that they don't really favor "stabilizing" the tax base, they simply want newer and higher taxes -- just what Nevada's economy can ill afford.
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"We have skyhigh crime, lousy health-care and are near the top of the list in almost every negative metric imaginable"
Nobody is keeping you here.
"Tax reform" is just codespeak for "tax somebody else".
WHO is responsible for the spending?
Do police spend more resources in the poorer or rich parts of town? Then tax the poor folks who consume the services.
Who consumes the biggest cost to government, the schools? Parents or retired folks? Then tax the parents.
See? Can't have the actual consumers of a service pay for it, now can we? Make somebody ELSE pay!
The solution is CUT SPENDING, not find out who we can screw over with a new tax.
In Nevada, any tax structure, no matter how logical and fair it may be, that does not favor those on fixed incomes will not be considered by the legislature. Those on fixed incomes is too active a voting group to be ignored. Nevada's tax strategy is very simple. As much as possible, tax somebody else. Tax tourists, tax businesses with out-of-state ownership, tax groups too small to affect an election. Tax them, don't tax me. A very simple strategy.
Beware of any plan to implement a new tax. The plan might call for eliminating some old ones but how often does that actually happen? Extremely rarely to never. This is conservatives showing their true color. Just more big government statists.
The Nevada Policy Research Institute is not even following the play book. Now is the time to being talking the talk on small gov. This is what they do while out of power. Of course, once back in they will never walk the walk. Look at Reagan, their hero. Just another big gov statist.
Putting a tax on all services, I don't care how small will hurt the very people that democrats claim they are helping, low income, fixed income and even to some extent the lower middle income brackets. The way it is now people in those brackets buy food and utilities without a tax. They make other things like clothing, furniture and taxable items last until they are almost destroyed. So no increasing taxes on these income brackets is not acceptable.
After reading the sage report and getting the highlights of the NPRI report, I come to the conclusion that government is tooo large and is not operating properly. The only effective way to cut government is to cut taxes and force it to become smaller. This will improve the Peoples economics and put more money in their pockets. They know what to do with it. The NPRI study does not cut taxes, it merely spreads them around and they are still paid by the people. Zero based budgeting in a recession should be reduction budgeting by the amount lost plus 12%.