MUTH’S TRUTHS

Well, not really.

On Wednesday afternoon, Jon Ralston reported in Flash: “As much as I had hoped they would have begun the education process earlier - usurping the role Gov. Jim Gibbons has abdicated - legislative Democrats Thursday appear poised to produce some real, substantive plans for the session.”

The key words here are “real” and “substantive.”

Well, Democrat Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford and Democrat Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley - with much fanfare, pomp and circumstance - finally released their rumored legislative alternative plan for dealing with Nevada’s budget crunch on Thursday.

“Real” and “substantive” it ain’t.

Lame. Pathetic. Embarrassing. Those are just some of the words that immediately spring to mind instead.

Rather than address the key questions involved in the budget debate - what to cut or what taxes to raise - the three-part Hors-Buck plan lamely titled “Charting a New Future for Nevada” (sends a Chris Mathews-like tingle up your leg, don’t it?) is all sizzle and no steak.

First, despite the federal government dumping BILLIONS of federal tax dollars into solving the housing and mortgage “crisis” - with little to show for it - Hors-Buck has decided to capitalize on the issue politically by proposing five feel-good measures which will do even less to fix the overall and underlying problems than the federal bailouts have done.

That being said, how does “curbing home foreclosures” fix the immediate budget problem facing Nevada’s state government? Answer: It doesn’t do squat. Although “doing something,” even if its actually nothing, will look good on a campaign flyer - and that’s what this is really all about.

Secondly, Hors-Buck proposes to use taxpayer dollars to create new job-training centers to create “green collar jobs” using one-time federal economic stimulus money which hasn’t even been approved yet to teach out-of-work maids and Starbucks cashiers how “to conduct energy audits, weatherize homes, and retrofit schools and other public buildings with energy-efficient measures.”

No, seriously. I’m not making this up.

Oh, and by the way, how does Hors-Buck propose to continue funding this new government program once the stimulus money, if it ever gets here in the first place, is gone? Details, details.

Lastly, we finally get around to the Hors-Buck proposal to actually deal with that budget thing:

“We must end the boom-bust cycle of our state budget, which is flush in good times and strapped in bad times. We must stabilize our budget without plunging our state into mediocrity. Unlike the Governor, we will not create a budget in a back room, without the input of those people who are most affected. These decisions will not be easy, but they will be made out in the open, with the input of any Nevadan who wants to give his or her opinion.”

In other words, “We still don’t have any alternative plan but we’ll keep criticizing the governor’s anyway.”

This is a shameful abdication of their “leadership” positions in the state government, but sadly most of the mainstream media is letting them get away with it instead of roasting them royally. I’m…shocked.

In response, legislative Republicans said…

Well, um…nothing. Again. As usual.

At least Gov. Gibbons is finally starting to fight back.

In response to the Hors-Buck non-proposal and political sniping, the governor’s office issued a statement on Thursday calling on the Democrat majority leaders “to present an alternative plan with specific solutions” while accurately noting that “as of yet nothing has been presented.”

“So far, both (Horsford and Buckley) find it easier to simply criticize cuts while hiding from the alternatives,” Gibbons said, adding that “each day spent bickering and criticizing without offering workable solutions costs our taxpayers money and compounds our budget problem.”

Gibbons also smacked Hors-Buck right in the puss for their ridiculous claim that they’ve only had four days to consider the budget problem. In his statement…

“Gibbons pointed out that the Legislature actually has more full-time fiscal staff than does the Governor’s budget office. Gibbons also pointed out that Speaker Barbara Buckley has been touring the state throughout much of the last year, ostensibly seeking solutions to the severe economic downturn. She and Senator Horsford attended two Special Sessions of the Legislature last year to address and solve revenue shortfalls. Yet now they contend that they have had only a few short days to address the topic.”

Hmm. Sounds like somebody in the governor’s press office has been reading Muth’s Truths. Now if only we could get some legislative Republicans to do the same and get in the game…

Posted on January 29th, 2009 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada