COMING THIS AFTERNOON…
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CITIZEN OUTREACH AND MOUNT
REAGAN RISING
A
well-balanced story by Henry Breen
on the initial approval of Citizen Outreach’s Mount Reagan Project was
published in today’s Las Vegas
Review-Journal. You can read all
about it by clicking
here.
And
there is a lesson to be learned from this for activists engaged in all manner
of issues: Citizen activism DOES make a difference. Fact is our proposal was almost scuttled
thanks to a last-minute email campaign to the Nevada Board on Geographic Names,
as is explained in the article.
So
our effort isn’t a done deal by any stretch.
We fully expect even greater opposition by Reagan haters now that the
proposal moves to the federal board in Washington, DC.
One
final note on this: I
can’t help but point out what former RINO Assemblyman Mark Sherwood wrote on his “idiot” blog a year ago about the Mt.
Reagan Project.
Ass. “SureWould” claimed
I was “scamming” money for this “phony” initiative and went on to ask, “What
does chuck muth have to show the donors who actually believed muth was either
sincere and/or competent to get Ronald Reagan’s name on (a mountain)?”
Um,
it’s called “success,” SureWould. Not
victory yet, to be sure. But definite
success.
CITIZEN OUTREACH FIGHTS
FOR CITIZEN INITIATIVES
The Nevada
Legislature, protecting itself from the great unwashed, passed a bill in 2005
that has essentially made it near-impossible for the citizens of this state to
get an initiative on the ballot. Naturally,
this “single subject” law doesn’t apply to the Legislature, only to us peons,
an outrageous slap at the very concept of equality under the law.
Fortunately,
Las Vegas attorney Kermit Waters has
filed a lawsuit, of which Citizen Outreach is a plaintiff, to overturn this
law. The suit is slated for oral
arguments before the Nevada Supreme Court in the near future. Read more by clicking
here and here.
KIRNER SPEAKING WITH
FORKED TONGUE ON THE “KIRNER TAX”
When a Republican starts dissembling over the
“principled character” of his position in support of a tax hike, one
immediately suspects the position is being articulated with a forked tongue
coming out of two faces. Such is the
case of Assemblyman Randy Kirner’s (R-Reno) recent defense of the proposed
“Kirner Tax.”
The Washoe County school district – like just
about every other school district in the universe – is whining about not having
enough money. So it went to the
Legislature this year to ask for a sales and property tax hike to fund school
construction projects – including the must-have, super-critical installation
of…wi-fi? - that would be built with over-inflated union wages.
And yet Kirner is now the leading champion of
a bill (AB46) in which he, his legislative colleagues and the governor opted
not to vote on the proposed tax hikes themselves – so much for profiles in
courage – but instead passed the buck to the Washoe County Commission in an
unconstitutional effort to circumvent the Gibbons Tax Restraint Law.
Kirner hopes the commissioners will send the Kirner
Tax to a vote of the people, laughably referring to this end-run as “a
principled approach to taxation with representation.”
What a load of sheep-dip. There’s no principle involved here. This is simply an all too typical case of a
weak-kneed GOP legislator bending to the whim of a liberal special interest.
The fact is, Kirner was elected to represent
the voters of his district, and those voters never demanded these tax hikes;
the school district did. Nor did Kirner
run on a platform of “Elect me and I’ll vote to raise your taxes.” So he has no electoral mandate whatsoever to
do so.
Which is the reason for his butt-covering
op-ed; designed to fool voters into believing up is down, night is day, and the
Kirner Tax is somehow a “principled” proposal even though it is in direct
conflict with the very Republican Party principles he supposedly supports.
If Assemblyman Kirner wishes to propose a
sales and property tax hike, then he should run on the Kirner Tax next year in
the Republican Party primary and see how well he fares at the ballot box.
And if some voters want to raise taxes on
themselves, they can go out and collect enough signatures to demonstrate
sufficient interest to put it on the ballot, just as former Gov. Jim Gibbons
did with his tax restraint initiative.
And if Assemblyman Kirner wants to duck his
responsibilities and not cast tough votes for or against local tax hikes, then
give the local governments “home rule” so they have the power to make such
decisions themselves.
Otherwise, perhaps Assemblyman Kirner could at
least adopt the principle of being straight with the voters. Or is that too much to ask?
THE WAY IT USED TO BE
For a
minute there while reading this tweet by former University Chancellor Jim Rogers, I thought he was talking
about MY family…
“My family didn’t have two cars until I was 14. Our house had a one-car garage with no plans or ability to make it a 2-car garage. My father had an excellent job that paid good wages and mother didn’t work until I entered the 7th grade. Under today’s tests for determining success, my family was a failure.“Yet looking back over those one car, one garage, one parent working and one parent staying at home, it seems to me my family was far more successful than its counterpart today, which must have both parents working, often more than a 40 hour week, both parents being stressed to the limit, and their children being denied the necessary time and attention from the parents.”
Of
course, part of the reason why both parents very often are forced to work
full-time these days is just to pay the taxes sucked out of their households by
the government!
GUN RAFFLE
For
just five bucks, you could win an HRA Goldenboy 22LR
rifle autographed by legendary rock star Ted
Nugent!
The
raffle is sponsored by the Lyon County Republican Central Committee and the
winning ticket (I hope it’s mine!) will be drawn at the party’s Lincoln Day
Dinner at the Boys & Girls Club in Yerington on February 1, 2014.
For
more information, contact editor@lyoncountynvgop.org
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“That
the (single subject) law frustrates direct democracy is virtually undeniable. The state and its allies argue the stricter
standard is necessary because initiatives are otherwise subject to fraud,
deception and abuse. But they should know better. Drop by the Legislative
Building in the last 48 hours before final adjournment if you want to see real
fraud, deceit and abuse: unread amendments voted upon; unvetted ideas snuck
into final bills by clever lobbyists; and back-room deals the public never
sees.” – Las Vegas Review-Journal
columnist Steve Sebelius
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