The latest bit of public-sector peer pressure involves online travel agencies such as Orbitz and Expedia. Travel Web sites heavily promote Las Vegas and are instrumental in keeping Strip occupancy rates well above national averages, even in this recession. The businesses pay taxes on their huge room buys, but on the wholesale prices they pay to hotels, not the prices they charge customers.

The fact that these Web sites profit from the practice bothers tax-hungry politicians, who think they're entitled to the biggest cut possible. So a handful of cities and states have sued the online travel companies for what they claim are unpaid taxes -- and some of them are winning. ...

If the Clark County Commission successfully extracts hundreds of millions of dollars from these companies, they'll have hundreds of millions of dollars less to buy Las Vegas hotel rooms. Government's short-term gain could be the economy's loss, replete with lower visitor volume, lower tax collections and more local layoffs.

FRIDAY

WRONG RECIPE

On Wednesday, the Pew Center on the States unveiled its list of the 10 most financially troubled states. ... The Pew report bemoans state officials' inability to enact a new, job-killing broad-based business tax. It laments that Nevada voters placed limits on the Legislature's ability to create and raise taxes. ...

Because Nevadans have resisted the creation of a crippling tax burden, they've thus far prevented the Silver State from descending into the kind of borrow-and-spend black hole that has swallowed the California Capitol. But the folks at Pew don't make that connection.