REVENGE OF THE GOP MUTANT TAX HIKERS
As most of us have known for months and finally confirmed in
writing earlier this week, Gov. Brian
Sandoval’s Gross Receipts Tax 2.0 (SB252) is dead.
And now that it has been officially declared and accepted as
dead, the governor released a new and not-improved Billion Dollar Tax Hike yesterday.
Let me first point out that had the Republican Assembly
Caucus not screwed around and declared the guv’s proposal DOA way back in
February, the governor would have had to come up with Plan B a whole lot
sooner.
So here’s Plan B…which is actually WORSE than Plan A.
1.) Instead of the
$600 million+ tax hikes known as the “sunsets” sunsetting, they will be made
permanent.
2.) Instead of the
annual business license fee reverting back to $100 per business across the
board as promised when the “sunsets” were passed in 2009, it will be jacked up to
either $300 or $500 depending on the size of your business (“from each
according to his ability”).
3.) Instead of the
Modified Business Tax (MBT) - the insidious tax that penalizes employers for
creating jobs – going back to the .63 percent it was before the “sunsets” were
imposed in 2009, it will jump from the current “temporary” rate of 1.17 percent
to 1.45 percent.
4.) For the
critically important mining industry in rural Nevada, the MBT will shoot up
even higher…to 2 percent.
5.) Also, the number of
businesses subjected to the MBT will increase as the exemption level will be reduced
from $340,000 in annual payroll to $200,000.
6.) The tax on
cigarettes will be jacked up by an additional $1 per pack.
7.) And oh, yeah, a
new gross receipts tax is included in the mix.
Although instead of calling it a gross receipts tax or a margins tax or
a business license tax, or a business license fee…we’re now supposed to call it
a “Commerce Tax.”
There you have it. Brian Sandoval’s new 7-step program for
screwing Nevada!
No wonder Investor’s Business Daily dubbed him “America’s
Worst Governor.”
And because Assembly Republicans waited so long to tell the
governor to go back to the drawing board with his original gross receipts tax
proposal, we’re now stuck with finding an alternative to this Taxapalooza with only
two weeks to go in the regular session.
As such, Assembly Republicans should learn from their
mistake at the beginning of the session and declare this Mutant Gross Receipts
Tax 2.1 dead, dead, DEAD right now, now, NOW!
The longer they wait, the more likely it is that either (a)
Nevadans are gonna get giga-screwed by these new giga-taxes, or (b) we’re going
into special session.
And all of this can be avoided simply by implementing the
simple proposals submitted yesterday by State Controller Ron Knecht and Assemblyman Jim
Wheeler which would fund the budget WITHOUT tax increases by simply
requiring local government employees to simply contribute towards their own
pensions at the same rate state employees pay.
That is, after all, the only fair thing to do.
So let it be written; so let it be done.
DRIVE-BY MUTHINGS
Nevada Republican Rep. Cresent Hardy
has re-introduced our bill to name the highest peak at the top of
Frenchman Mountain on the upper-east side of Las Vegas "Mount Reagan."
Let's hope with a Republican House and Republican Senate that we can
finally get this absolutely appropriate and well-deserved honor for the
"Gipper" approved by Congress.
Thank you, Congressman Hardy!
* * * * *
Since his “the votes aren’t there” excuse doesn’t hold
water, the real reason Senate Judiciary Chairman Greg Brower is refusing to hold a committee hearing and vote on
AB148, the campus carry bill, is…
(a) He’s protecting some anti-Second Amendment Republicans
in the State Senate from having to go on record as being anti-Second Amendment,
or…
(b) Gov. Brian
Sandoval doesn’t want to have to decide whether or not to sign a campus
carry bill and Brower’s doing his dirty work for him, or…
(c) He so despises the bill’s champion and lead sponsor,
conservative Assemblywoman Michele Fiore,
that he doesn’t want to see her get credit for the bill’s passage.
Actually, I think it’s all of the above. And none of them are acceptable reasons.
* * *
* *
SB504, Nevada Mrs. Gov. Kathleen Sandoval’s feel-good “anti-bullying” bill, has now been
approved by the Legislature. Only one
Republican state senator, Don Gustavson,
had the fortitude to vote against the bill.
And only five Republican assemblypersons in the lower house did so: John Ellison, Michele Fiore, Ira Hansen,
John Moore and Erv Nelson.
* * *
* *
SB312 is a bill to raise hotel taxes. It sailed through Senate Majority Leader Tax Hike Mike Roberson’s Senate with
only one vote against it – that of Tax Pledge signer Sen. Don Gustavson.
It passed in the Assembly on Thursday, with all Tax Pledge
signers EXCEPT Speaker-of-the-Weak John
Hambrick, voting “no.” The nine –
Assembly members Jill Dickman, Vicky
Dooling, Michele Fiore, Brent Jones, John Moore, Victoria Seaman, Shelly
Shelton, Robin Titus and Jim Wheeler
- were joined by Assemblymen John
Ellison and Steven Silberkraus.
If only four more Republicans who CLAIM to be fiscal
conservatives and champions of the taxpayer had voted “no,” the bill would have
been killed.
Demonstrating once again that the problem isn’t the Tax
Pledge, but that we still haven’t elected enough Tax Pledge signers.
* * * * *
In 2013, liberal, tax-hiking Nevada Republican State Sen. Ben Kieckhefer voted to require
parental notification before a minor would be allowed to use a tanning
bed. But in this session he’s opposing
parental notification before a minor terminates a pregnancy.
Do these RINOs not see the hypocrisy of their votes?
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
“Should teachers make $100,000 a year? Absolutely.
You can accomplish that by not worrying about class size and worrying
about the quality of the teacher. In
short, you can get rid of teachers which are just union members taking up
space, increase the class size and remove impediments to educating kids who
want the education. That means disruptive kids in the classroom.” – Penny
Press publisher Fred Weinberg
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