NEVADA - CITIZEN OUTREACH 06/16/2015

THOSE BLEATING, GRATING VOICES OF IGNORANCE & DISAPPOROVAL

By Chuck Muth

President, Citizen Outreach

June 16, 2015

When liberal blogger Jon Ralston is in high dudgeon over something conservatives are doing, you know conservatives must be doing something “right.”

Such is the nascent effort to repeal the largest tax hike in Nevada history, recently passed by the Nevada Legislature and signed by Gov. Brian Sandoval...

A tax hike that made permanent the $600 million-plus worth of “temporary” tax hikes sold to us in 2009 as necessary to weather the ongoing Great Obama Recession, and a new gross receipts tax just like the one almost 80 percent of Nevada voters rejected last November.

In his Sunday blog post, Ralston referred derisively to those of us opposed to SandRINOval’s $1.4 billion tax hike as folks “bleating their disapproval,” while wondering if the RINOs who voted for this monstrosity will be able to “drown out the grating voices of ignorance and destruction” who want to repeal the Mother of All Tax Hikes.

High praise indeed.

So let’s take a look at some of the bleating, grating voices of ignorance whose opinions were published over recent days in letters-to-the-editor by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the state's largest newspaper...

From Mark Strussenberg of Las Vegas…

“Regarding the move to approve Gov. Brian Sandoval’s tax plan, I may have missed something here, but when did we elect tax-and-spend Republicans?”

From Mike Mathews of Las Vegas…

“Gov. Sandoval didn’t campaign on tax increases, all while his minions were crafting a tax-hike plan during the entire campaign season.  Gov. Sandoval’s entire campaign consisted of ribbon-cuttings, crisp suits and good grooming.  He acted directly against the will of the voters, who recently shot down tax ballot measures. . . . I believe the only way to save Gov. Sandoval’s political career is for him to switch to the Democratic Party, where he clearly belongs.”

From Matthew Whittaker of Pahrump…

“I saw that the Assembly passed Gov. Brian Sandoval’s tax plan.  What a sad situation.  Gov. Sandoval and the Republicans in the Assembly and Senate were elected by a groundswell of conservatism.  What do we get for our support?  A wink and a giant step to the left.

“When did our leaders lose their will to do their job?  All this bill will do is deepen the current recession and drive business away. . . .

“I believe my money would be better spent in a more conservative state, where I will not be forced directly or indirectly to pay for the governor’s RINO (Republican in Name Only) agenda.  This year, I will vote with my feet.”

From our friend Wayne Allyn Root of Las Vegas…

“The Republican leaders of this state are delusional.  They’ve also committed fraud.

“It’s not a crime to support higher taxes.  There is a fair and honest debate.  If you support raising taxes, you have every right to your opinion.  But then what makes you different from a Democrat?

Who needs Republicans to pass the biggest tax increase in Nevada history?  We could have easily elected Democrats to do that. . . .

“But worst of all, these GOP leaders are bragging about committing fraud.  If they wanted to pass the largest tax increase in history, why didn’t they campaign on that idea? . . .

“Instead they lied and misrepresented their agenda.  This is the very definition of fraud.  They lied to their customers about their product and what it does.

“They misrepresented themselves, committed fraud and back-stabbed their best customers.  And for that, they will all pay a big price.”

From Dave Mesker of Las Vegas…

“Gov. Brian Sandoval sold us out, sending us down the drain, along with the so-called safe Republicans.  Again, our votes mean nothing in this state, as this Legislature just showed us. . . . We are now going to put more money into a (public school) system that is so far gone that if it were a business, it would be bankrupt.

“And thanks to our friends in Carson City, the Department of Motor Vehicles will make permanent the fees that should have expired June 30.  And then they go and throw a $1-a-pack tax hike on cigarettes.  When will this all stop?”

From Nicholas P. Gartner of Henderson…

“The same people who campaigned on a no-new-taxes platform are now trying to hide after voting for just that – new taxes.  They say that the new taxes are only on businesses.  Really?  And how do these businesses get the money to pay these new taxes?  That’s right, from you and me, the consumers.  As if we were not already paying enough, now we are going to pay an additional $1.4 billion in new taxes. . . . I hope people wake up and vote out the whole Legislature in the next election.”

From Bill L. Wilson of Henderson, with his tongue planted firmly in cheek…

“I was overjoyed when I read of state legislators agreeing to a tax increase.  In conjunction with retaining taxes due to expire and the millions of dollars in economic impact from all of the conventions, that will mean that the education system will be awash in funds to build more schools and create a more educated population, in order to attract more businesses, which will then pay more taxes.  ESL students will soon be speaking the Queen’s English, and teachers will finally get paid what they’re worth. That is what it all means, isn’t it?”

Mr. Wilson is absolutely correct in his skepticism.  There’s no way all this extra money is going to fix what’s wrong with our public schools, no matter how hard liberals like Ralston try to convince you it will.

Heck, even the liberal Las Vegas Sun felt compelled to publish an anti-tax-hike LTE from Donald Armitage of Henderson…

“This is for all lawmakers and supposed representatives of the people: How do you justify taxing a minority group of people?

“I’m talking about increasing the cigarette tax.  This tax is completely unfair.  Smokers may not be your favorite people, but what gives you the right to single out smokers for extra taxation?

“If state government cannot operate on existing income, then you need to account more diligently where tax money is going, just as each of us has to do when there’s not enough money in our households.  You should not be able to just tax the people more.”

Indeed, as Mr. Root and others have pointed out, the honest thing for these politicians to do would have been to campaign on raising taxes last year and let the voters make an informed decision on whether or not they wanted to elect candidates advocating for these tax hikes.

They didn’t.  They lied.  They misrepresented themselves.  Like the used car dealer who rolls back the odometer from 143,000 miles to 43,000.  Or those bait-and-switch time-share salesmen.  Or those get-rich-quick-scheme ads in the weekly tabloids.

No wonder people hate politicians. 

BEWARE OF PALE IMITATIONS

The We Decide Coalition, a project of Citizen Outreach, continues to do its due diligence in researching the viability of seeking to gather enough citizen signatures on a petition to put repeal of the largest tax hike in Nevada history on the ballot as a referendum in 2016.

I can tell you that there are two big legal questions that need to be resolved before any legitimate and responsible effort to launch a referendum can take place on the constitutionally-allowed start date of August 1^st.  We hope to have those issues answered and resolved by the end of the week.

In the meantime, unfortunately, there are some “posers” (“a person who acts in an affected manner in order to impress others”) out there who are now trying to make a name for themselves by jumping in front of the parade and claiming to lead it.

One of those people is a young, ambitious gal named Ciara Matthews, the former spokesperson for Sharron Angle’s disastrous U.S. Senate campaign in 2010, who is now running around telling everybody and anybody who will listen that, and I’m paraphrasing, “Chuck Muth is controversial and has ticked off many politicians and establishment GOP donors in the state.”

Guilty, your honor.

As such, Ms. Matthews – who once declared in a personal interview that her weakness was “A well built man with penis lines!!!” (huh?) – is selling herself as the savior who can pull off the referendum, even though she has no idea what the legal options or mechanics of such a referendum are.

Ms. Matthews apparently believes that stealing someone else’s idea and running with it will put her new, as yet un-launched, political organization on the map.  Good luck with that.

Don’t be fooled by imitators and knock-off artists.  CLICK HERE to join the original “real deal” We Decide Coalition effort to repeal the largest tax hike in Nevada history.

NEVER FORGET WHO SOLD YOU OUT

Here’s the full rogue’s gallery list of the Dirty Baker’s Dozen of RINO legislators who voted for the largest tax hike in Nevada’s history, including creation of a new gross receipts tax…

Assemblyman James “The Big Selloutski” Oscarson – Nye County

Assemblyman P.K. O’Neill – Carson City

Assemblyman Pat “RINO” Hickey – Washoe

Assemblyman Randy “Kirner Tax” Kirner – Washoe

Assemblyman David Gardner - Clark

Assemblywoman Melissa Woodbury – Clark

Assemblyman Lynn “The Bug Man” Stewart – Clark

Assemblyman Paul Anderson – Clark

Assemblyman Derek Armstrong-Anderson – Clark

Assemblyman Stephen Silberkraus – Clark

Assemblyman Erv Nelson – Clark

Assemblyman Glenn Trowbridge - Clark

Assembly Speaker-of-the-Weak John Hambrick – Clark

Let the primaries begin!