TO: We Decide Coalition
If you don’t think Gov. Brian Sandoval and the GOP
establishment are scared down to their skivvies over the possibility of a
referendum being placed on the ballot next year to possibly repeal their
largest tax hike in state history – including the creation of a new gross
receipts tax – consider this…
The Sandoval
administration’s unofficial press secretary and Minister of Propaganda, Jon Ralston, recently inked one of his
patented liberal blog conniptions dumping all over the repeal effort and its
leaders.
That
said, being
attacked by Ralston is actually a conservative badge of honor. Ralston
attacks those he fears and those who don't grovel at his feet and
whisper sweet nothings in his ear.
In any event, I’ve
reprinted this latest Ralston Rant in its entirety below so you can see for
yourself just how low these people are willing to go to stop our Ax the Tax effort, but a couple of points
and observations first…
1.) The 2003 group of conservative anti-tax hike heroes were the “Lean 15.”2.) Ralston refers to Beers and Knecht as losers and failures when the only real loser and failure is Ralston by virtue of being nothing but a political spectator. He doesn’t have the balls to actually play in the arena.3.) Ralston’s “poll” of knowledge on the part of those he calls “cuckoos” is totally irrelevant…as is Ralston himself.4.) Funny how Ralston criticizes me for “ad hominem screeds” in…um, his own ad hominem screed. What a hypocrite.5.) The real Big Lie is Ralston continually claiming that the gross receipts tax rejected by 80 percent of voters last November isn’t the same as the gross receipts tax passed by the Legislature. It is.Both would tax businesses on their gross sales whether or not the businesses are profitable. Apples to apples…though one is green and the other is red. They’re both still apples.6.) Ralston suggests that 80 percent of legislators voting for the tax hike proves they’re right. I guess that means Ralston believes if 80 percent of legislators voted to bring back slavery they’d be right too, right?
The Hypocrite King,
indeed.
By the way, if you’re
one of those “cuckoos” who would like to see all or part of this massive tax
hike repealed, please join Citizen
Outreach’s “We Decide Coalition” by clicking here
OK, enough of the set-up. Enjoy your pabulum…
Chuck Muth
#1 Irritator of Liberals and RINO's
Chief Cuckoo & Bottle Washer
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ralston: Anti-tax duo make run at reversing Sandoval plan
In 2003, a
couple of assemblymen cobbled together a coalition of their colleagues to block
a tax increase.
They held up
the session until mid-July when the late John Marvel broke ranks and dissolved
the so-called Mean/Fearless Fifteen. (The adjective depended on your
perspective.)
The $830
million tax increase passed, albeit without a gross receipts component that
Gov. Kenny Guinn had proposed to truly broaden the base. But that was small
consolation for the Norquistian ringleaders, Bob Beers and Ron Knecht, who were
the losers of that session.
They're back.
Actually, they
never went away. Beers, now a Las Vegas city councilman, and Knecht, now the
state's controller, are getting the gang back together to try to put the $1.4
billion tax increase of 2015 on the ballot next year. They are likely to fail —
this is what these folks do best — but anyone who actually cares about the
state's future and is sick of demagogues manipulating the masses to help
themselves should be wary of charlatans in anti-tax clothing.
Beers said
Friday on the Las Vegas NPR affiliate that he met with Knecht last week to
"put all these groups together and point them in the same direction."
This is sort of
like R.P. McMurphy trying to organize that field trip. What a nest of cuckoos
this is.
A partial list:
A gaggle of
county Republican parties and the state GOP have put forth resolutions
condemning those who voted for the largest tax increase in history and vowed to
defenestrate them and repeal the tax. I would bet all of Sheldon Adelson's
money that if I took a poll of these activists, a minuscule percentage would be
able to:
A) Tell me the
components of the tax plan;
B) Explain
which small businesses would be affected; or
C) Provide even
a partial list of what they would cut to make up the revenue.
Beers ally
Chuck Muth, whose specialty is ad hominem screeds directed at people who don't
pay him, has made a living being a political arsonist. Generally, this results
in self-immolation, but someone continues to keep paying him even though Muth
has shown a propensity to turn on those he previously supported. So these frogs
let this scorpion ride on their backs at their own risk.
On the surface,
the coming battle, if there even is one should these groups find a sugar daddy,
is a mismatch. These people would have to be upgraded to Washington Generals
status.
Consider:
Knecht, who was
craven and not clever when he anonymously introduced a 2003 bill to rename
Nevada as "East California," and Beers, whose accounting skills allow
him to play math tricks that indicate he missed a Common Core principle or two,
are survivors who know how to rile up the base — or the most rabid base
frothers. But that's it.
Knecht is an
accident elevated by the 2014 red wave who continues to believe he is the
smartest man in the room and only proves he is not when he opens his mouth.
Beers, who
recently withdrew from a U.S. Senate race he had no chance to win, is clever
but has never expanded his appeal beyond the "we hate liberals"
cohort.
The state GOP
is arguably the most feckless political organization the state has ever seen.
It is bankrupt and leaderless.
Muth vowed to
defeat Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison, erase many Assembly incumbents and recall
Assembly Speaker John Hambrick and others. He didn't come close in any of those
endeavors.
I would
consider this entire tax repeal movement a comic interlude if not for the
coalition's use of a big lie: That what was passed by lawmakers and signed by
Gov. Brian Sandoval is the same as what 80 percent of Nevadans voted against
last year.
It's not. It's
really not even close.
Sandoval &
Co. showed sensitivity to the labeling issue by not calling it a gross receipts
tax — it is the Commerce Tax. But a tax based on a company's revenue is the only
similarity to Question 3, the teachers union-backed initiative that was crushed
in 2014.
People forget
that Question 3 essentially had no moneyed backers beyond the teachers union,
so the cascade of obloquy destroyed it. The Education Initiative was
differently and poorly constructed, had a much higher rate than the Commerce
Tax and had a dramatically different floor — $1 million in annual revenues vs.
$4 million.
But that canard
of an analogy is what the Assembly's Know-Nothing Caucus used to oppose it
during the session, replacing measured arguments with sound bites.
If Beers and
Knecht can find money from outside the state (Grover of the DC Norquists? The
Kochs?), and they would need a lot, this could be dangerous.
Sound bites,
especially scare tactics, can win in a campaign.
On the radio
program last week, Beers, in his characteristic derisive tone, said, "the
Left is fond of calling those (who oppose expanding government) 'extremists,'
" retorting that it is the ones who voted for the tax increase who deserve
the label. Oh?
Forty-eight out
of 60 lawmakers voted for the package, with members of both parties talking
eloquently about how the tax/education reform would move Nevada forward,
especially in education. That's 80 percent of the Legislature — a figure no
Beersian math can obscure.
Only a small,
ignorant bunch on the far right who bow to tax pledges more than thoughtful
lawmaking, who believe in the continual dumbing-down of the legislative and
political processes are likely to be hypnotized by the Beers-Knecht-Muth
nonsense.
But remember
what Edmund Burke said.
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