Longtime political activist Kermitt Waters is preparing to put forward a constitutional amendment via a ballot initiative that would dramatically boost taxes on the mining industry and big businesses with revenue over $1 million a month (gaming exempted). And while we’ve heard of such tax hike efforts in the past, Water’s proposal has a kick: It’s not just a pure tax hike.
Indeed, the hike on mining and big business comes with the complete elimination of all property taxes on single family homes!
Another attention-grabbing aspect of Water’s proposal is the fact that the revenue raised from the tax hikes can’t be spent by the Legislature on what the Legislature wants to spend the money on.
The revenue would have to be spent on what the initiative says it has to be spent on separate and outside of the state’s general fund revenue. And there’s a little something in the spending for just about everyone, according to a Las Vegas Sun story on the initiative in Sunday’s newspaper.
- A new appeals court that would benefit the Nevada Supreme Court justices
- Raises of $5,000-10,000 for public school teachers
- Road construction/improvements
- No interest loans for home-owners to purchase solar panels and windmills
- Replenish the dwindling Guinn Millennium Scholarship fund
- Allow signature-gathering on the Internet
- Provide health care for poor children
The “establishment” is gonna hate this idea. It takes power away from them. And the mining industry is going to hate this idea. It gives them, in their opinion, the shaft. And big businesses are gonna hate it. It takes money off their bottom line. But for almost everybody else – including many fiscal conservatives if the proposal is revenue-neutral – what’s not to love?
The devil, of course, is in the details (and the court system), but keep your eyes on this one.
THE RALSTON RANT
Nugget #1: When it comes to tax hikes, Jon Ralston is a master of unwavering contradiction.
First, Jon is in favor of raising taxes. Not just broadening the tax base. Raising taxes. He believes the government needs more money to do more things. He is, after all, a card-carrying bleeding-heart liberal. And he loves spending OPM – other people’s money – on what HE thinks is necessary and important.
But in Jon’s Sunday Las Vegas Sun column, he criticizes a proposed AFL-CIO ballot initiative to impose a corporate income tax on Nevada’s small businesses because while the union claims the people should have a say on the issue, Jon says the people have already had their say by electing the members of the Legislature.
“(G)oing to the ballot is the only crucible I can think of that is worse than Carson City,” His Awesomeness wrote. “The capital is the place to have this discussion…”
Two things:
1.) As you can see, Jon viscerally opposes direct democracy. Even though the people of Nevada have also already had their say in establishing the ability of citizens to govern themselves through the ballot initiative process, Jon – in typical liberal fashion – generally opposes such initiatives. Our elected rulers, after all, know what’s best of us hayseed “little people,” right?
2.) Jon opposes the Taxpayer Protection Pledge. Even though Jon thinks legislators elected by voters should make all the decisions regarding tax policy, he oppose candidates who run for office making a campaign promise to their voters that if elected he or she “will vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes.” He referred to such candidates as “Norquistian Nabobs of Negativism.”
Grover Norquist is the “father” of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge.
Anyway, Jon’s trying to have it both ways here…as usual. He doesn’t want voters to have a say on whether or not to raise taxes via a ballot initiative; but by the same token, he doesn’t want voters to have the choice of voting for candidates who make solid, unequivocal written promises not to raise taxes even though by voting for such candidates, voters are having a say in whether or not they want taxes raised.
Call it “Ralstonian Pretzel Logic.”
Now, with all this tax hike talk via ballot initiatives, it’s important for conservatives to know exactly what’s going on here. The fact is, because of the VOTER APPROVED Gibbons Tax Restraint Initiative - which requires a 2/3 super-majority vote of the Legislature to raise taxes - massive tax hikes coveted by liberals and Jon Ralston (but I repeat myself) are increasingly hard to pass.
Which is why the AFL-CIO is trying to put their massive tax hike on the ballot; because a tax hike on the ballot only requires a 50%-plus-one vote to pass instead of a 2/3 vote. This is the loophole in the Gibbons Tax Restraint law the Left is now trying to exploit; a loophole the taxpayers of Nevada should snap shut forthwith.
As union boss Danny Thompson is circulating his initiative petition to put his tax hike on the ballot, conservatives should circulate one that would require that all future tax hike ballot initiatives meet the same 2/3 super-majority vote as tax hike proposals in the Legislature. So let it be written; so let it be done.
DON’T HEDGE, SIGN THE PLEDGE
Every Republican legislator who signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge voted AGAINST the $620 million tax hike last year…and every Republican who voted FOR the tax hike refused to sign the Pledge. So if you don’t want your taxes raised in Nevada, it’s simple: Tell candidates, “If you don’t sign the Pledge, you don’t get my vote.”
POLITICAL POTPOURRI
* Ron Paul took first place in Saturday’s ‘Saddle Up Texas Straw Poll’ with 27.9 percent of the 707 in-person paper votes tallied. Texas Governor Rick Perry placed fourth, earning just 19.4 percent. Newt Gingrich with 23.8 percent, Rick Santorum with 21.2 percent, Mitt Romney with 6.6 percent, and Jon Huntsman with 1.1 percent. What does it mean? Maybe nothing; maybe everything.
* Conservatives in South Carolina could possibly settle the question as to which of two candidates, Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum, will leave as the unofficial official “not Romney” candidate for the duration of the race. And that candidate’s going to have to do well in Florida to emerge as a serious contender for the GOP nomination.
But if not, Ron Paul will, by default, end up being the last “not Romney” standing - with the resources to stay in the race ‘til the bitter end. And with the nominating rules changed this year - whereby candidates are awarded delegates proportionally rather than winner-take-all - don’t yet rule out a brokered national convention. Mitt Romney hasn’t sealed the deal with conservatives/tea partiers yet by any stretch.
* LVRJ editorial page editor Vin Suprynowicz makes an excellent point today regarding the appointment process for the new Clark County DA. Former district court judge Don Chairez was “the only applicant who’d actually bothered to challenge (outgoing DA David) Rogers for the office, losing a close 2010 race by 20,000 votes out of nearly 500,000 cast.” But Chairez wasn’t one of the three applicants who made it to the finals. Can you say “juice job”?
* The Las Vegas Valley Tea Party will be hosting an event Monday night, January 16, at the old Tommy Rockers nightclub on Dean Martin Drive in Las Vegas. The featured speaker will be David Keene of the National Rifle Association. 6-8 pm. Open to the public. Just $10 per person. I’ll definitely be there…and hope many of your will join me. RSVP to Vicki Dooling at vickid@lasvegasvalleyteaparty.com
ALL THE “RIGHT” MOVES
* I’m told Assemblyman Cresent Hardy has taken himself out of the running to be the new caucus chairman when Republicans meet this week to elect a replacement for Minority Leader Pete Goicoechea, who is stepping aside to run for the state Senate.
That leaves Assemblyman Pat Hickey of Reno vs. Assemblyman John Hambrick of Las Vegas. Hickey is still considered the favorite to prevail, but both have pledged cooperative assistance to the other regardless of who comes out on top.
MUTH’S TWUTHS ON TWITTER
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