TEA PARTY RALLY IN VEGAS
TRUNC and Americans for Prosperity will host a “Tea Party” rally on Friday, April 15th, at the Grant Sawyer building in Las Vegas from 4 - 7 pm. Overflow parking at Cashman Field: $4. Water and restrooms available. KXNT will be on location covering the event. Please pass this to everyone on your list; show Harry Reid that the Tea Party is here to stay!
For additional information, contact Laurel at laurel@TRUNConline.com
WHY DEMS KEEP TAX-HIKE HOPE ALIVE IN CARSON CITY
If Democrats continue to believe there’s even a slim possibility that a tax hike could pass through each house of the Nevada Legislature and blow past a certain gubernatorial veto, Republican legislators have only themselves to blame.
While Gov. Brian Sandoval continues to issue Shermanesque “No way, no how” statements regarding tax hikes, Assembly Republicans continue to negotiate with Assembly Democrats for an extension of the 2009 “temporary” tax hikes which are scheduled to “sunset” this coming July.
We’ve already established that Assembly GOP leaders are political prostitutes; now they’re just negotiating price.
Meanwhile, over in the Senate, Majority Leader Steven Horsford, who needs to hold all of his Democrat senators while picking up the votes of three Republicans, obviously still sees a glimmer of light at the end of the tax hike tunnel.
Word on the street is that term-limited Sen. Dean Rhoads - who at the start of the session declared that tax hikes were necessary, only to retract that statement after pressure from constituents and a meeting with the governor – is reportedly now in discussions with officials of the teachers union to throw the governor and his Senate colleagues under the bus at the end of the session when push comes to shove on tax hikes.
That’d be one.
And Sen. Joe Hardy - a moderate Republican who in his short time as a member of the Assembly managed to vote for the largest and third largest tax hikes in Nevada history - continues to chafe under the governor’s no-new-taxes budget and was said to have strongly resisted signing onto a letter of support backing Gov. Sandoval’s proposal earlier this session.
As the only remaining GOP assemblyman to have survived politically after voting for the Mother or All Tax Hikes in 2003, Hardy may believe he’s immune from electoral defeat for voting for tax hikes.
That’d be two.
For his part, Sen. Ben Kieckhefer, another moderate Republican, owes his election last year to former Sen. Bill Raggio and a host of moderate GOP establishment figures from northern Nevada. If the money men pressure and twist the arm of the young freshman to vote for a tax increase over the objections of Gov. Sandoval, it’d be extremely tough for him not to dance with the ones who brung him.
That’d be three.
And, alas, giving Horsford a little additional hope, Republican state Sen. Greg Brower opened the door ever so slightly in a Las Vegas Review-Journal story last week. The Reno senator was quoted as saying, “A budget proposal that includes revenue or tax increases, I don’t think gets two-thirds support right now, (my emphasis) and I don’t think would ever have two-thirds support.”
The key words, of course, are “right now.” That means possibly later. With later maybe being the end of the session. And the senator only “thinks” that such tax hikes are off the table, not “knows.”
Now, I don’t think Sen. Brower’s statement means that Sen. Brower himself is “going wobbly.” I think he means he knows that some in his caucus are wobbly. And as someone who still remembers vividly then-Assemblyman John Marvel selling out the “Lean 15” in the 2003 tax battle, I don’t take the no-new-taxes words of Rhoads, Hardy or Kieckhefer at face value.
Not…for…one…minute.
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Prepare thyself, GOP, for the Mother of All Sell-outs. And then let the primaries begin!!
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NEAL SMATRESK’S GRAND DELUSION
A Las Vegas Sun interview last week revealed that UNLV President Neal Smatresk believes taxpayer “state funding for UNLV is not spending, but an *investment* in the Southern Nevada economy.” He claims UNLV is a “profit center” for Nevada and complains that taxpayers - who keep pumping more and more money into this “investment” without ever seeing a profit - view his institution as a “cost.”
Um, if it’s a “profit center,” then why do you need taxpayer subsidies, hmmm? Why don’t we just privatize UNLV and let it stand on its own?
Smastresk then goes on to further insult the taxpayers who fund his institution and pay his salary by declaring that Nevada’s citizens have “never placed high value in higher education.” He also falsely claims that economically strapped taxpayers “believe we can cut our way to greatness” and accuses them of “magical thinking.”
Bite me, Neal.
I'm so sick of these pompous, holier-than-thou, ivory tower higher ed elitists who claim that the blue collar workers who pump millions upon millions of dollars into their institutions don’t “value” education.
This isn’t a matter of “valuing” education; it’s a matter of setting spending priorities rather than continuing to give the Nevada System of Higher Education a blank check to, for example, pay a tenured professor $108,000 a year to teach one class a week. Or to run two separate teaching and nursing schools at two separate campuses located just 15 minutes apart.
To put it another way, just because we tell our children that they can’t have a brand new car doesn’t mean we don’t value them. To suggest otherwise, in either case, is, at the very least, extremely offensive. The Smastresks of the world over at Hyperbole U ought to knock it off. Insulting your benefactors by biting the hand that feeds you is certainly no way to win friends and influence people.
LOOKING FOR A SPEAKER?
Want your organization to get the inside scoop on what will happen next in Nevada politics and public policy? Invite Chuck Muth to be your speaker! Send an email to Chuckto get rates and dates.
Upcoming Engagements
April 13: Republican Townhall Group (Las Vegas, NV)
April 15: Tea Party Rally/Grant Sawyer Bldg. (Las Vegas, NV)
May 24: Southern Hills Republican Women (Henderson, NV)
July 9-10: Conservative Leadership Conference (Las Vegas, NV)
WY R KIDZ ISN’T LERNIN’
Teachers sure aren’t doing themselves any favors by making ridiculously absurd arguments against minor spending reductions in education. Take Annette Bonder (please!).
Ms. Bonder is a substitute teacher in Clark County who posited the notion in a recent Las Vegas Sun letter-to-the-editor that reducing the salary of a public employee in Nevada equates to “actually taxing the income of the employee.” She goes on to ask: “Is it fair to tax the incomes of those who work in the public sector while the rest of Nevada workers have no state income tax at all?”
Huh? Reducing salaries that are 100% funded by tax revenue is somehow an income tax hike? And with reasoning like that, some still wonder why so many of our kids are coming out of the public schools dumber than bricks?
STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS/POLITICAL CONSULTING
Desert Fox Strategic Communications for political campaigns and government affairs communications. Click here
LICENSING BIG WHEELS?
Not satisfied with registering cars, motorcycles and trucks, charging a king’s ransom for the “privilege,” and then jacking up the fees “temporarily” in 2009, the Nevada Legislature is now trying to force people who ride little mopeds to not only register them with the DMV, slap on a license plate, get liability insurance, and wear motorcycle helmets, but pay new registration fees, as well.
Oh, and AB 508 “Increases or Newly Provides for Term of Imprisonment in County or City Jail or Detention Facility.”
And if you don’t think tricycle, wagon and Big Wheel registration is on the horizon, think again. The Safety Nannies never stop. Never.
FIRST FRIDAY HAPPY HOUR
May’s First Friday Happy Hour in will feature Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain as our VIP guest. Friday, May 6 at Stoney’sin Las Vegas from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. Free parking, no cover charge and 2-1 drinks. First Friday is co-sponsored by conservative talk-show host Alan Stock and and KXNT 100.5 FM/840 AM.
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“On March 20, Terry Jones of Gainesville, Fla., made good on months of threats to burn a Quran. . . . Mr. Jones burned a Quran because he believes Islam is a vile religion of violence and oppression. Untold thousands of Muslim extremists then answered Mr. Jones' charge that they're crazed thugs and murderers by behaving like crazed thugs and murderers. American leaders then lined up to heap scorn...on Mr. Jones.” – Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial, 4/8/11
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