MUTH’S TRUTHS

Now that Gov. Gibbons and the Legislature have agreed to a general fund budget which has NO NEW TAXES, the remaining big-ticket budget item is transportation…and how to fund an expansive list of highway construction projects around the state. The Governor has a plan. And surprise, surprise…the plan includes NO NEW TAXES.

The plan was introduced yesterday as a bill by state Sen. Bob Beers. At its core, the proposal takes a little bit of future tax revenue growth from a variety of sources and redirects that money to highway construction. In other words, making better, prioritized use of existing revenues instead of raising taxes. But the tax-hikers won’t give up.

“A separate proposal brought by Sens. John Lee (D-North Las Vegas) and Dennis Nolan (R-Las Vegas) combines an increase in diesel fuel taxes, an increase in the per-trip fee paid by cabbies and a diversion of room and property taxes to raise about $2 billion,” reports Amanda Fehd of the Associated Press this morning.

In addition, “Assembly Transportation Chairman Kelvin Atkinson (D-Las Vegas) said Tuesday he is ready to seek legislative approval to ask voters whether they want to approve tax increases to finance road construction,” reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal this morning. “That probably is the best way to go since the governor won’t allow us to raise taxes.”

Awwww. Poor baby. That mean, ol’ governor! Bad, Governor Gibbons, bad.

Far from being a budgetary Atkinson diet, Kelvin’s plan is to ask voters to chow down on some $150 million worth of higher taxes a year…enough to choke a horse.

But in a conference call with conservative bloggers from around state hosted by Citizen Outreach this morning, Gov. Gibbons not only reaffirmed his commitment to addressing the state’s transportation needs with NO NEW TAXES, he added that despite predictions that his plan was “dead on arrival” in the Legislature, he was optimistic that a deal could still be worked out.

And who knows? It just might happen. After all, the conventional wisdom was that the Governor would never be able to get a general fund budget approved without raising taxes. But that conventional wisdom proved to be wrong yesterday. Perhaps conventional wisdom will be turned on its head once again before the scheduled June 4th adjournment date?

The fate of the governor’s transportation proposal is still unknown; however, one thing’s for sue: Any final deal that gets approved without tax hikes will again make Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus very unhappy. I don’t know about you, but that’s something I can live with. And afford.

Posted on May 30th, 2007 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada