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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…
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…
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…
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:
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
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