SILVER STATE CONFIDENTIAL 01/18/2015

VEGAS SOCCER STADIUM PLAN: IT’S A RIOT! The Las Vegas City Council, without public support, has voted 4-3 to use tens of millions of dollars to build a brand-spanking new soccer stadium in downtown Las Vegas.  For some reason, I recalled this morning what happened at the last major soccer event held in the Las Vegas area.  It was a riot – literally - at a match held at the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl.  Which, by the way, is a perfectly fine venue for soccer matches and has the additional virtue of, you know, already being built! Anyway, here’s the opening paragraph of the Las Vegas Review-Journal story from July 3, 2013… “Pandemonium erupted as up to 400 rival soccer fans clashed during El Super Clasico pregame festivities Wednesday night, drawing more than 120 police officers to the scene and sending at least six people to the hospital.  Violence flared up again when the game ended about 10 p.m. when angry fans rushed the field, throwing bottles and cans.” And since a picture’s worth a thousand words, here’s a photo from the melee, courtesy of the RJ... Las Vegas taxpayers should fund THIS instead of neighborhood parks and playgrounds?  I don’t think so. By the way, City Councilman Bob Beers is leading an effort to block the stadium gigaway via a ballot initiative and needs help gathering signatures before Tuesday’s deadline.  You can sign up to volunteer by clicking here THE PUBLIC EDUCATION GIGAWAY On Thursday night, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R&R-Advertising) announced the following sneak-attack on the business community in his State of the State speech… “To close the gap between proposed revenue and projected spending, I am offering a two-part solution. … First, the so-called ‘sunset taxes’ must be continued to cover basic expenditures. … Second, we must identify new sources of revenue. … I am therefore proposing…modifying the existing Business License Fee to a graduated scale…” Almost all of the cash windfall would be earmarked for the bottomless pit of failure and hopelessness known as the government’s public schools.  The liberal Las Vegas Sun editorialized on Sunday that “Although many politicians have bemoaned the state’s ranking in education, along with Nevada’s other woes, few have demonstrated the political guts to try to fix them.” Oh, puh-lease. Sandoval has been governor for four years, two full legislative sessions and a handful of special sessions.  He didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.  And he sure as Hades didn’t just come up with this billion dollar tax hike and gigaway to education since November 4th. This plan was developed LONG ago…but was strategically kept under wraps and secret from voters during the governor’s re-election campaign despite the fact that he essentially had NO OPPONENT! The governor not only didn’t have the guts or respect for voters to campaign on his plan, he never even hinted at it.  That’s “courage”?  In what dictionary?  On what planet? No, the governor didn’t show “guts.”  He showed that he believes voters are too stupid to know what’s best for them.   And if that means he has to dishonestly mislead the great unwashed to trick them into going along with his scheme, so be it. That doesn’t take courage.  That takes chutzpah. DOUBLE-CROSSING, FORK-TONGUED RINO Immediately after Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval’s (R&R-Advertising) announcement that he intended to make the $640 million worth of temporary “sunset” tax hikes permanent, Nevada State Sen. Ben “Blue Dog” Kieckhefer (RINO-Reno) threw his support behind the plan and seconded the emotion. Which makes him - and sorry, but there’s no delicate way to put this – a liar. Indeed, in his GOP primary campaign against former conservative state Assemblyman Ty Cobb, Kieckhefer was asked in a televised debate, point blank, if he would support extending the sunsets.  Kieckhefer’s no-room-for-misunderstanding reply was… “No, I will not.” Then he did. Hey, don’t take my word for it.  Thanks to our good friend Victor Joecks over at NPRI, you can hear it right from the horse’s mouth.  Just click here In the movie classic The Cowboys, the legendary John Wayne told Bruce Dern’s character that he wouldn’t hire him for a cattle drive; not because he’d spent time in jail, but because he didn’t tell the truth about working for a previous employer. “I can’t stand a liar,” Wayne deadpanned. If only more voters felt the same way. TAX BREAKS FOR A SWITCH I watched Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval’s (R&R-Advertising) State of the State speech at a public viewing in the headquarters of Switch Communications in Las Vegas Thursday night. Everyone there was quite happy about the announcement that Switch bagged some pretty impressive tax breaks in order to expand its business in Nevada – a reduction in their sales tax rate to 2 percent and a 75 percent reduction in its property taxes for the next 15 years. Hoo-ahh!! Personally, I’m pretty much happy whenever taxes are cut, but it was certainly more appropriate to reward Switch - which has already been operating here in Nevada for over a decade and slugged out the worst recession in our state’s history with the rest of us – than to give even BIGGER tax breaks to Tesla, which is a new kid on the block. My only complaint is that ALL Nevada businesses aren’t getting some kind of tax relief like Switch and Tesla.  Instead, Sandoval is proposing to bend the rest of us over and give us all a collective high colonic. Clearly generous tax breaks stimulate business expansion and new business development.  That creates jobs.  People with jobs buy stuff.  When people buy stuff, they pay taxes.  So the bigger and better the tax breaks for businesses, the better it is for generating more tax revenue. So why is Sandoval RAISING taxes on just about every business in the state except Switch and Tesla instead of cutting taxes for every business in the state just like Switch and Tesla? Inquiring minds wanna know. DRIVE-BY MUTHINGS So Gov. Brian Sandoval (R&R-Advertising) intends to tax the snot out of Nevada businesses by imposing a new gross receipts tax tied to the annual, only-in-the-nation state business license, which happens to be tracked and collected by the Secretary of State’s office.  So naturally, Sandoval would have conferred and consulted with Nevada’s new Republican Secretary of State before moving forward with such an ambitious and controversial plan, right? That’s not what I’m hearing.  I’m hearing SoS Barbara Cegavske blew her top and is fuming that Sandoval blindsided her with his proposal. Sandoval’s slight shouldn’t really be all that surprising, though.  Cegavske is a conservative, after all.  And Sandoval doesn’t consult with conservatives.  He just steps on them. *   *   *   *   * Sandoval is proposing a billion dollar tax hike, with some 80 percent of it going into public education but not even an honorable mention for universal school vouchers?  And GOP legislators are going to support this? *   *   *   *   *  Oh, by the way, not only does Sandoval want to take away our money through a billion dollar tax hike, but he also wants to take away our right to vote for our own members of our own local school boards.  It’s a shame tar-and-feathering ever went out of style. *   *   *   *   * OK, let me get this straight… The elected members of the Washoe County School Board fired School Superintendent Pedro Martinez, and Sandoval then slaps those school board members across the face on Thursday by hiring Martinez as a “Superintendent in Residence” – whatever the hell that means – to head up something new he invented called an “Achievement School District” – whatever the hell that means. Once again, the powers-that-be are willing to try any new, expensive, feel-good education reform boondoggle as long as it doesn’t involve school vouchers. *   *   *   *   * Las Vegas Review-Journal headline on Saturday: “Nevada education officials identify 78 failing schools.” I guess they didn’t know the names of all the other ones. FAMOUS LAST WORDS “Not one (Nevada) legislative candidate campaigned urging a tax increase, nor did the Governor. The ‘sunset’ taxes’ that were promised by the Legislature to expire in 2011 are now going to be permanent. That is a promise made and not kept.  Is it any wonder that people don’t trust government?” – John Wagner, Chairman, Nevada Independent American Party “Tax hikes are what politicians do who have not the vision, competence or desire to reform government.” – Grover Norquist, president, Americans for Tax Reform “The people are not taxed too little; it is their government that is spending unwisely.  Raise taxes, and you haven’t solved anything.” –Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey “We will reduce the size and scope of government to match the will of the people. State agencies will be merged to make them more effective, more efficient, and more accountable to the public.  We will continue to weed out waste, fraud, and abuse. Budgets will be set based on the taxpayers' ability to pay and not on the government's ability to spend." – Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker “At least we now know why the Democrats didn’t recruit a substantial candidate against Gov. Brian Sandoval in the last election.  It would have been hard to find anyone capable of running to the left of our popular Republican.” – LVRJ columnist John L. Smith “I’m glad to hear the governor (Brian Sandoval) talk about so many Democratic ideas.  The educational plan is a prime example. We’ve espoused many of those things over the past decade so we’re delighted to welcome him to the table in that regard.” – Democrat Nevada Senate Minority Leader Aaron Ford "It is amazing to see a Republican governor (Brian Sandoval) with such a Democratic agenda on school issues and school funding.  So many of those issues, we (Democrats) have been working on for a decade. Full-day kindergarten? We started that in 2005.  So it's great to see full-day kindergarten, preschool programs recognized by this governor." – Democrat Nevada State Sen. Debbie Smith HOW TO SUBSCRIBE Silver State Confidential is an email newsletter on Nevada politics, public policy and current events published (usually) daily by Chuck Muth, Nevada's #1 Renegade Conservative and the man voted "Most Likely to Irritate Liberals!"  Click on the link below for subscription information…