God bless Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley. Believe it or not the Las Vegas Democrat has made the single most compelling case for cutting the Nevada state budget. And not just by a measly 5 percent. By a LOT.
But first, one has to shake their head in disbelief at the childish tantrums thrown by Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid (Harry’s boy) and University Chancellor Jim Rogers when Gov. Jim Gibbons gave them an opportunity to make recommendations for tightening their fiscal belts by a measly 5 percent to prepare for the reality of a slowing economy. According to Rory Reid & Rogers (sounds like a law firm, doesn’t it?) there is no room in their flush budgets to cut a measly 5 percent, a claim which is absurd on its face.
Nevertheless, when the Guv gave them an opportunity to make suggestions on where to cut that measly 5 percent if necessary, the pair told him to pound dirt and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Politically speaking, such open, public revolt and defiance cannot go unpunished. This is now more than a policy dispute. Rory Reid & Rogers have challenged gubernatorial authority. The prestige of the governor’s office is now on the line - and others are likely to stamp their feet and hold their breath ’til their faces turn blue if they believe they can do so without consequence.
If Rory Reid & Rogers are allowed to get away with “dissing” the governor like this, we might as well start calling Jim Gibbons a lame duck right now and avoid the Christmas rush. Forget water-boarding; it’s time for a little wood-shedding.
That being said, let’s now look at what Barbara Buckley said in response to the governor’s call for a measly 5 percent rollback of the whopping 20 percent increase in the budget passed just a few short months ago. Here’s what the woman-who-would-be-governor in 2010 told the Las Vegas Sun yesterday in response to the governor’s call for a little budget belt tightening…
“It’s sending every state agency and county government into a panic. Last week, hardly any work got done because of the panic that is out there.”
Hmmmm. Hardly any work got done, huh? Did any of you notice that hardly any government work got done last week? Me neither. Which raises a few questions…
If government workers hardly did any work last week, were their paychecks docked to reflect the absence doing their work?
And if hardly any work got done last week, and nobody noticed, doesn’t that, in and of itself, make the point that taxpayers are paying workers to do work that really isn’t necessary?
And if that’s the case, shouldn’t it be pretty easy to cut government budgets by a whole lot more than a measly 5 percent simply by eliminating all the jobs that government employees didn’t do last week which no one noticed they weren’t doing?
Then again, maybe all this proves is that Barbara Buckley’s sky-is-falling, panic-in-the-halls-of-government rhetoric is nothing but a bunch of crappola. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Posted on October 24th, 2007 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada
Here’s how the Las Vegas Sun’s reported the story about Commissioner Reid’s response to Governor Gibbons:
“The Clark County Commission, led by Chairman Rory Reid, also is saying no to the governor. Reid, in a letter to Gibbons, said complying with the governor’s request to offer possible budget cuts for child welfare, juvenile justice and indigent medical care - programs in which the counties and state share the costs - ‘would imply that such cuts are necessary or acceptable.’”
When discussing “child welfare, juvenile justice and indigent medical care,” the gigantic elephant in the corner that everyone is trying to ignore is illegal immigration.
In a series of articles published back in July, the Las Vegas Review-Journal estimated that there are 120,000 to 200,000 illegal immigrants in Clark County. Is this estimate correct? No one knows. The government that tracks every detail of everything doesn’t want to know what the impact of illegal immigration is. My guess is that illegal aliens in Clark County are using at least 5% of the “child welfare, juvenile justice and indigent medical care” services that Commissioner Reid doesn’t want cut.
Why isn’t Governor Gibbons raising this issue? Why aren’t the Republicans raising this issue? Is it because some of the primary beneficiaries of illegal immigration are the corporations who donate large amounts of money to the political parties?
Maybe Jim Rogers was right when he advocated a corporate income tax. Maybe it’s time that the corporations starting paying the “child welfare, juvenile justice and indigent medical care” bills that they’ve foisted on the rest of us thru their hiring policies.
Chuck,
Did your kids get their free after school day care that you bashed Senator Nolan for wanting the State to be paid to provide? Oh yes, you call it ’sports’, yet call all day kidnergarten ‘day care’ not education. Just looking for a congruent argument from you on this issue.
Whopping 20%?! Hell, you said it was only 6% above population + inflation, and since then inflation has gone up quite a bit!
I saw on another blog that the State has enough money to give a multinational company worth $120 billion!, $30,000 to train 30 employees on how to make paint. Sheat!, if we have taxpayer money to give away like that to the much heralded ‘free market’ then I don’t see how we have to cut funding for our own citizens. Do you?
Shoot, we coulda given that $30,000 to the cowboys with the cattle who eschew Washington and welfare recipients, I think they call themselves the Nevada Cattlemen’s Association, who just this week asked the Governor for a federal handout seeng as their ‘free market’ ran smack into a drought (like any idiot didn’t see that coming 4 years ago and smartly decide to get into a different business).
In a perfect world, the $30,000 that the Nevada Commission on Economic Development gave to PPG Architectural Finishes shouldn’t be necessary. This is essentially an example of industrial policy at the state level. Instead of offering a level playing field where there is 100% open competition, a low tax base, low spending, etc., the state is investing in certain industries and companies to assist their success. Ideally, the state does so with the motive that it needs to compete to bring/keep companies here vs. other states, and that if the company is in a desirable industry and offers good wages, then the state gains thru future tax revenue.
In defense of this particular deal, PPG is contributing $10,400 to the training. In addition, PPG is hiring right now, and their starting wage for new production associates is $14.75/hour, which is a pretty good starting wage for the Storey County area.
In contrast, Reno Republican Mayor Cashell and the Reno City Council voted to extend sales tax breaks to Cabela’s in return for Cabela’s decision to build a store west of Reno. Cabela’s is a huge sporting goods company that will have a huge advantage in the Reno market once its store is open. On top of that, the city council gave Cabela’s a sales tax break. As a result, most of the small family owned sporting goods stores in Reno are already planning to close shop once Cabela’s opens. On top of that, the city council thought that building the store would help the local construction industry. Well guess what? Cabela’s hired a construction company from Phoenix to build the store. Thank you very much, Reno City Council.
John L. Smith of the Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote the following today:
“Nevada is what I call a cardboard Libertarian state. Folks like to wax philosophical about our state’s up-by-the-bootstraps heritage, but in truth we’re buffeted between the usual conservative and liberal political forces. Our budget is too frontloaded with salary and public employee retirement spending to be considered a conservative Promised Land, and our public health, education, and welfare systems are too malnourished to rank much above Mississippi.”
If the problem is this simple (too much spending on government salaries and pensions and too little money left over to support social spending), then it seems like the solution should be pretty simple too.
As Ronald Reagan said, “For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is, there are simple answers, they just are not easy ones.”
In other news, The Washington Post reports that in response to the drought and water shortage in Georgia, “Governor Sonny Perdue ordered state agencies Wednesday to reduce water consumption immediately by 10 to 15 percent.”
I wonder why Governor Perdue isn’t following Mr. Rogers’ advice. He should be calling the Georgia legislature into special session to increase the supply of water to meet demand.