Cede the day

Nevada Democratic legislative leaders long ago decided they would refrain from proposing any specific tax policy -- or even saying the word "taxes" -- for as long as possible so as to preclude attacks on a particular plan. As a result, while Nevada struggles with the worst state budget shortfall in the nation, the media background noise over the last several months has been dominated by essentially negative narratives -- anti-cuts on one side, anti-taxes on the other.

Sometimes the media discussion has strayed into the level of analysis best confined to the water cooler. For instance, a KLAS reporter kicked off one recent TV news segment by telling viewers that Nevadans could end up paying more taxes, "businesses included, and they're going to end up passing any increase on to you."

Perhaps as penance for blithely repeating a Chamber of Commerce talking point as if it were truth, KLAS should now ask big box retailers, on air, why their prices are the same in Nevada as in other states, even though the other states have a corporate income tax and Nevada doesn't.

That is, after all, one of the many facts that has not been reported much in the media since the state started scrambling to deal with crashing revenues (or before, for that matter). And there are several other considerations that would better inform public opinion on taxing and government spending but that have received only scant media attention (usually in the Sun if anywhere, and occasionally, it should be noted, on KLAS).

After what looked like it might be promising groundwork by Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley during her "Nevada 2020" presentations last year, and with occasional and rare exceptions such as Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, the Democrats have not even tried to present the media and the public with a positive case for a much-needed sweeping rethink of Nevada's failed tax policy. Instead, Democrats have spent the legislative session making defensive excuses for modest revenue increases ("the governor's proposed budget cuts are too big"). For the most part, when the public has heard the word "taxes," it hasn't been in the context of the need to fix a broken and unfair system, but as a dirty word anchoring the rhetoric of fearmongers who claim that any new taxes will destroy The World As We Know It. Thanks not only to the foul phenomenon typically referred to as Gov. Jim Gibbons but also to reckless assertions from politicians in both parties, a majority of the public is probably familiar with the assertion -- and perhaps even believes -- that "now is not the time to raise taxes."

By contrast, how many people know that Nevada is one of only three states -- count 'em, three -- with neither a corporate income tax nor a gross profits tax?

For that matter, how many legislators know?

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford is now calling for an eventual corporate income tax, and Buckley appears to be making some coy noises suggesting that she is not as opposed to establishment of a broad-based business tax as her earlier statements indicated.

I'll believe it when I see it, but let's optimistically assume for the sake of discussion that there is, or was, or will be a commitment to pushing a broad-based tax. To what degree has the Democratic reluctance -- or more accurately, refusal -- to engage in a tax debate over the last several months further darkened the already dim hope of meaningful change? Would significant reform stand a better chance had the Democrats forcefully started pushing for it from the start?

Of course those are retrospective hypothetical questions. But I not-so-modestly suggest that reflecting on what Democrats have done, or failed to do, could -- and should -- end up being more than just an exercise in woulda coulda shoulda for Democratic voters when they assess not only the outcome of the legislative session, but when they consider where they want their party and, more importantly, Nevada to go from here and who they think will help them get there.

Now it's undeniably true that if Democratic legislators had unveiled an ambitious agenda early on it would have been attacked. But...

• Democrats also would have had the opportunity to educate the public about the perversity and unfairness of a system that allows businesses to reap the benefits of public services without paying for them. There is, after all, a reason that only three states don't tax businesses: It's stupid not to.
• Instead of saying nothing in response to the all-too-common-of-late refrain that "in this economy, now is no time to raise taxes" (or worse, echoing it), Democrats might have been pointing out that in this economy, now is no time to continue saddling one group of people with a disproportionately large tax burden through Nevada's over-dependence on regressive sales taxes while letting another group pay next to nothing. 
• How much more fun -- and productive -- it might have been if over the last few months Gibbons and his ilk were forced to respond to Democratic-driven storylines and explain why the right is effectively advocating proportionally the largest budget cuts in the country to the nation's most poorly funded state government while allowing out-of-state corporations to siphon profit from Nevada tax-free.
• Democrats might have even reminded the media and the public that when demand peters out government spending is the key to getting the economy moving again, and they might have warned that cutting state spending only further damages Nevada's wrecked economy and delays a recovery.

The number of voters who self-identify as Republican is lurking in the run-down neighborhood of 20 percent nationally. If Obama's 12 point victory in Nevada -- compared to only a 7 point edge in the national popular vote -- is an indication, it seems reasonable to assume that Republicans aren't in any better shape here than they are nationwide. 

Through disciplined messaging in support of principled positions, as opposed to disciplined silence designed to reveal no positions, Democrats might have applied relentless pressure -- and yes, mockery and scorn -- on Republicans over the last few months, firmly cementing the GOP's public image in Nevada as the thoroughly discredited Party of No.

Shouldn't Republicans in the apparently obstructionist state senate be withering under public opprobrium for wanting to gut education while steadfastly defending a failed and unjust tax structure that leans on the middle class and the working poor yet coddles corporations? Shouldn't those GOP senators be terrified -- not of the tiny band of teabaggers, the commenters on the Review-Journal's website or a hyperbole-laden ideological dressing-down in an R-J editorial, but of the majority of voters in a blue state?

What if all this time, Democrats had been enthusiastically championing a clear case for taking Nevada in a new and different, which is to say positive, direction?

We'll never know. But one thing we do know is that by refusing to present the public with a thoughtful and unapologetic case for a sorely needed rethink of taxing and spending, state Democratic lawmakers have demonstrated that either they don't trust voters to understand an honest argument, or they don't trust themselves to make one.

Now they've got about two weeks to shock and awe us all with an aggressive and effective full-court press for fundamental change and I for one am torn: Which is more disappointing -- the fear that they can't do it, the lingering expectation that they won't even try, or the suspicion, heightened during this of all legislative sessions, that too many of them just don't care?

Comments

[dave404]

Gleaner,

You may as well ask,
"And how can you mend a broken state?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend this broken state?
How can a loser governor ever win?
Please help me mend my broken state and let us thrive again."
(Bee Gees: How Do You Mend A Broken Heart)

I still believe the reason is Article 4, Section 5 of Nevada's Constitution;
" It shall be the mandatory duty of the Legislature at its first session after the taking of the decennial census of the United States in the year 1950, and after each subsequent decennial census, to fix by law the number of Senators and Assemblymen, and apportion them among the several counties of the State, or among legislative districts which may be established by law, according to the number of inhabitants in them, respectively."

I guess we're paying today for a majority in the future. Still trying to figure out how deep the hole is.

[Michael Green]

This is one of the reasons that we need to repeal term limits. Would Buckley take the positions she's taking if she had a safe assembly seat? No. She's thinking of bigger things. If I am wrong about this, I'd like to hear it--but I just don't see it.

[atdleft]

This is one of the reasons that we need to repeal term limits.

True, Michael. However, I suspect Buckley might still be cautious even without term limits if she were still running for Governor... Unless we were to give her a major incentive to stop being so cautious. Heck, we can still do that now!

I do think Barbara Buckley has been so cautious not because she doesn't believe in reforming the tax system, but because she's afraid she doesn't have the votes in Carson City to make it happen. That's why we need a three-pronged strategy to:

1. Push Buckley & Horsford to actually craft a more progressive budget that actually expands the tax base and makes the tax system less regressive.

2. Push the other legislators to support this budget.

3. Educate the public, regardless of the final outcome of the budget, on why we need a more progressive tax system to actually properly fund the government we need.

[Michael Green]

Atdleft, I confess to doubts. Would Buckley be running for governor if not for term limits? Maybe. But otherwise she would be guaranteed, given her district, a return to Carson City and the speakership. If she were speaker again in 2011, would she want to repeat all this or solve it now? If the answer is repeat all this, she shouldn't be in the legislature, much less speaker or governor.

She has a 2/3 majority in the Assembly and no signs of real dissension there. The bigger problem would presumably be Horsford's ability to get two Republicans to go along. If one of those Republicans is Raggio, that means making a deal to make sure UNR and northern schools continue to get a disproportionate share of the funding, so the hope would be that southern Nevada Republicans would see where their bread is buttered.

[mcvegas]

Sen. Raggio, thanks to the man who would be governor, came to the table with more power than ever. Horsford and Buckley may have wanted “tax reform” but Raggio grips the string that holds the Sword of Damocles. That string was/is Gibbon's budget.

Sir Bill came in and said, “We'll only agree to raising existing taxes; we won't be implementing new ones” (and then he threw in his other conditions, like public employee benefits.) He discarded any meaningful talk of tax reform.

You can make an argument that Buckley and Horsford should have stood ground. But, given the 120 days (in reality, the 115 days, considering the veto override) how much meaningful debate would there have been? How much vehemence would the press (read “RJ”)have spewed? When you take into account that Raggio had to coax a couple of members of his caucus into voting for ANYTHING that had the words "tax" and "increase" in the same sentence, it becomes a high stakes game. The alternative, not getting something through, was unthinkable.

Would Raggio blink? If he did, could he pull a couple of Republicans into the mix? Who knows? But, could Barbara and Steven take that chance?

Once again, we have a “band-aid” approach (I hate to use that hackneyed phrase). To top it off, they didn't bring enough band-aids to the battle. I think they came up short on the revenue side of the equation. (Do the math, and then pray for a miraculous economic recovery.) Anyway, here's just a couple of band-aids that have been left off the patient.

Last Saturday, a bill that increased the business license fee from $100 to $200, passed out of a joint tax committee. It had a provision that would have taxed each business “location”. When the bill got to the Senate, the provision covering multiple locations was removed. As it stands now, assuming the “Governor's” veto is overridden, a guy named Dave who owns “Dave's Taco Shop” will pay $200 a year. People named Walton will pay the exact same $200 fee to cover all of the Wal-Mart's in Nevada. (The arguments against the multiple locations provision were specious, and any concerns could have been worked out in the regulatory process.)

Mining companies are earning some of their highest profits in history. Over the years, they've been given many generous tax “write-offs.” There was talk of taking back, at least temporarily, some of them. What happened---no “new” taxes?

A bill was introduced to put a “fee” on plastic grocery bags. (If everyone were to keep using them, the fee would bring in $60 million a year---the idea was to get people to stop using them.) The fee was, for the most part, a voluntary tax. If you don't want to pay, take a cloth bag to the store with you. Yes, sometimes that wouldn't be practical---in that case, kick in the dime; it might help pay a teacher's salary. New York City is considering similar legislation; Ireland and New Zealand already have it in place, as do many places in Canada. It's not a “kooky” idea. (The “Review-Journal” negatively opined that the money was earmarked---that was done for parliamentary reasons, and the bill would have eventually been amended to put the money into the general fund. A truly astute political observer could have figured that out, and, perhaps they did However, that would have detracted from their overall opposition.)

I could go on, but why bother? Better luck two years from now, when, thanks to term limits, you have a bunch of new legislators who have no historical knowledge.