SILVER STATE CONFIDENTIAL 06/01/2015

DRIVE-BY MUTHINGS Sometimes it’s NOT better late than never.  That especially goes for the National Rifle Association (NRA), which sent out an action alert on Sunday urging members to contact Senate Judiciary Chairman Greg Brower and urge him to vote for campus carry…the day AFTER Brower announced he had killed campus carry for this session. Lovely. *   *   *   *   * On the exact same day that the Republican-controlled Nevada Senate failed to pass a campus carry bill, “the Republican-controlled Texas Senate voted to allow the licensed carrying of concealed handguns in most state university buildings.” Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has said “he would sign any bill that expands gun rights on campus.” Nevada “Republican in Name Only” Gov. Brian Sandoval has refused to support campus carry. Nevada Republicans never blow an opportunity to blow an opportunity. *   *   *   *   * HELP WANTED: Volunteer writer(s) on gun rights issues for a new blog I’m starting, with a particular focus on Nevada.  Send email expressing your interest to me at chuck@citizenoutreach.com *   *   *   *   * Only three Republicans in the State Senate voted on Monday against the largest tax hike in Nevada history, including the creation of the new gross receipts tax: Sens. James Settelmeyer, Don Gustavson and Pete Goicoechea. The tax-hiking GOP senators were Sens. Tax Hike Mike Roberson, Ben Kieckhefer, Greg Brower, Joe Hardy, Scott Hammond, Becky Harris, Mark Lipparelli and Patricia Farley. *   *   *   *   * Sen. Joe Hardy said today that you can vote for the largest tax hike in Nevada’s history, including the new gross receipts tax, and still be a Republican. True.  But you can’t be a conservative. *   *   *   *   * You know, it wouldn’t have been so bad for the GOP “leaders” in the Assembly to have caved in on the tax hikes if they at least would have insisted on one thing: Re-districting so they’d have a chance to retain their majority next year. These boobs couldn’t even do that. *   *   *   *   * After Victor Joecks of the Nevada Policy Research Institute pointed out in legislative testimony that all this new money won’t fix education the way liberal blogger Jon Ralston (D-UI) claims it will, Ralston called him a “jerk.” What a jerk. *   *   *   *   * If the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce isn’t the most useless, spineless business organization in all of Nevada, I’d love to know what is. After sitting on the sidelines watching the tax hike parade go by the entire session rather than standing up and saying “No,” it issued a long-winded, butt-covering press release on Monday slapping itself on the back for being a spineless, gutless wonder.  Gotta love this little excerpt… “While the Chamber lent support to the overall plan in the spirit of compromise to get education funded, we expressed concerns about the component of the plan that taxes adjusted gross revenues. Unfortunately, without it, there would be near certainty of more initiative petitions based on worse tax policies. The place to debate and decide tax policies is before the legislature, not via ballot measures.” First, the very premise is BS.  We ARE funding education.  Funding the heck out of it!  It’s just that the government is misspending the money.  And no matter how often the likes of liberal blogger Jon Ralston regurgitate it, all this extra money won’t fix education.  Period. Secondly, it’s clear that the voters themselves are better protectors of Nevada’s business community than either the Chamber or state legislators.  Voters, you’ll recall, overwhelmingly REJECTED a new gross receipts tax last November at the ballot.  The Legislature just created one. How many times does the Chamber have to capitulate to the forces of government expansion on the backs of small businesses before those small businesses wake up, smell the coffee and quit the organization? *   *   *   *   * Mary Lau, head of the Retail Association of Nevada, isn’t the only business lobbyist whose members got scorched by passage of Gov. Brian Sandoval’s gross receipts tax.  Paul Enos, head of the truckers’ association, also got burned.  But like Lau, it serves him right. Both have been aiding-and-comforting moderate legislative Republicans for years, embracing the appeasement strategy once described by Winston Churchill as “one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” Indeed, even up to the day before the vote, Enos was quoted in the Las Vegas Review-Journal as saying, “We support two-thirds of the revenue package.”  The other third was the gross receipts tax.  So he was happy to screw everybody else over; he just didn’t want his members to get screwed over with the new gross receipts tax. Well, Paul, congratulations.  The croc may have eaten you and your members last…but eat you it did. Serves you right. *   *   *   *   * If Enos, Lau and other business lobbyists who helped get just about every business in Nevada screwed this session want to do some penitence and try to undo the damage they hath wrought, they’d pony up the money to get the amount of signatures required to put this entire tax package – including the gross receipts tax and making the “sunsets” permanent – on the ballot next year as a referendum. Don’t hold your breath waiting. *   *   *   *   * Happy that Education Savings Accounts – a school voucher derivative – passed the Legislature this session, but disappointed that the bill screws working parents who have already struggled and made serious and difficult working and budget choices in order to send their kids to a private school.  They are NOT allowed to participate in the ESA program.  Neither are those practicing the ultimate in parental involvement: homeschoolers. A huge opportunity to take care of those who have already made tremendous sacrifices to assure a quality education for their children blown by Republicans who never blow an opportunity to blow an opportunity. FAMOUS LAST WORDS “Raising taxes is a sign of incompetence in a politician. He/she cannot manage. A willingness to raise taxes is telegraphing such failure.” – Grover Norquist, president, Americans for Tax Reform 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…