Why "TEA Party, Inc." Fears "T Word" Honesty

(They did it again. Of course, they did it again! They're the powers that be who happen to run the state's largest [absolute embarrassment of a] "newspaper". Today, they published another in-house anti-TEI ad. But this time, they posted it on the front page and right under a story boasting about how much money the No on 3 campaign has raised!

Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

So we figured today is the perfect day to take a trip down the Nevada Progressive archives and back to June 2012. Let's review why we now have Question 3 on our fall ballot. Let's examine the truth behind the lies being propagated by opponents of The Education Initiative. And let's remember how this whole Question 3 campaign began.)

As we noted yesterday, the corporate margin tax is finally going live. And already, it's making a big splash. And already, the radical right is making noise on how "dangerous" this is.



The usual "tea party" suspects are kicking up the scare tactics. Who knew a simple margin tax, a tax proposal that some progressives complain doesn't go far enough[, could be so damned frightening?] That's why I had a good laugh when I saw NPRI's hand wringing, and why I then rejoiced when I saw Sebring's rebuttal of NPRI's fearmongering at The Nevada View.

Anti-tax reform groups, like NPRI, feeling like they have duped and confused middle class citizens go on to state that “research shows there’s little to no correlation between $ and student achievement.” The facts are not on their side though. As the Student-Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project and the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) project have shown, “Research concentrating on class size is important because the findings have largely concluded that smaller class size leads to increases in student achievement, helps to close the minority-majority achievement gap, and has several other long lasting benefits.” Class size reduction though isn’t possible without an increase in the number of teachers in classrooms within a district. Logic tells us that these increases in teacher counts will cost money. Thereby showing that increased financial investments in schools most certainly does increase student achievements, as well as providing other socially relevant benefits.

For decades, the likes of NPRI have deceived Nevadans into thinking we could get something for nothing. But in the last decade, we've had to learn the hard way that we really can't get "money for nothing and chicks for free". Instead, our penchant for rewarding tax evasion has only caused us unnecessary pain and suffering as we've failed to invest in the public infrastructure (like public schools) necessary for growing a sustainable and diversified economy.

Even Ralston, who sometimes wants to like NPRI almost as much as he hates the initiative process, couldn't stay mum on NPRI's idiotic attempt to stifle reasonable discussion on badly needed tax reform. And that's what has "Tea Party, Inc." running scared. The frustration is real, the need for reform is real, and now the first step in building a lasting solution to our chronic budget AND economic development woes is real. They're trying desperately to stifle this, but their days of bullying Nevada into remaining a failed state (just so their corporate patrons can reap the rewards of our suffering) are numbered.

#Tesla Update(s)

And it's on! We knew this was eventually coming. But now, it's official. "The Tesla Session" is officially underway in Carson City.



And what have we learned since this morning? Perhaps there will be no Switch, after all?

Remember when we told you about the last minute move by the Southern Nevada data center company to land tax credits for a Nevada expansion? So far, Governor Brian Sandoval (R) is saying no. It remains to be seen how many allies Switch has in the Legislature Building.

In the mean time, Steve Sebelius notes the slippery slope this state will approach if the deal is approved. Why Tesla? Why Apple? Yet why not Switch? And why not any other company willing to tell us what we want to hear about "economic development"?

Also, PLAN made it official this morning. Folks there are concerned about the glossy numbers Governor Sandoval's office has released about the economic impact of Tesla's Gigafactory, as well as shifting the tax burden from Tesla to working families. Oh, and PLAN added this at the end: "One last question, which has been asked by others but only answered by silence: Why can’t the state of Nevada come together on a plan to raise revenues to fix our broken education system as enthusiastically as the rush to create a $1.3 billion package of corporate subsidies for a single company in one part of the state?" Ouch. (This is actually the reason why The Education Initiative [TEI] is on our fall ballot.)



At least now, we're starting to see the Tesla bills emerge. We're also continuing to see strong reviews for the very technology Tesla wants to bring to Northern Nevada. The Tesla Gigafactory may even end up producing 20% more renewable electricity than it actually needs.

The Guinn Center just endorsed the Tesla deal, provided there are benchmarks Tesla must meet in order to continue enjoying those tax credits. Reno News & Review's Dennis Myers, however, calls foul on what he sees as naked corporate welfare. And of course, NPRI is against anything that doesn't perfectly fit its ideological mold.

We probably won't have more #Tesla details until around 4:00 PM. We'll do our best to stay on top of it all. And if there's any critical breaking news tonight, we'll do our best to cover it here. So go ahead and stay tuned as #TeslaMania continues in Carson City.

The Secretive Climate Denial Campaign in Our Backyard

This week, we've finally had an actual discussion on climate change and what to do about it. It helped that President Obama talked about it in his State of the Union Address. And it helps that even some conservative Republicans have recently begun speaking on the need to prevent a total climate crisis.

However, we're already seeing renewed resistance to action on Capitol Hill. Why is that? It certainly doesn't help that Tea Party, Inc., has been spending recklessly to block any significant action on climate change. Earlier this week, The Guardian uncovered a secret network of wealthy conservative donors dedicated to thwarting any & all action on climate change.

Conservative billionaires used a secretive funding route to channel nearly $120m (£77m) to more than 100 groups casting doubt about the science behind climate change, the Guardian has learned.

The funds, doled out between 2002 and 2010, helped build a vast network of thinktanks and activist groups working to a single purpose: to redefine climate change from neutral scientific fact to a highly polarising "wedge issue" for hardcore conservatives.

The millions were routed through two trusts, Donors Trust and the Donors Capital Fund, operating out of a generic town house in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. Donors Capital caters to those making donations of $1m or more. [...]

Those same groups are now mobilising against Obama's efforts to act on climate change in his second term. A top recipient of the secret funds on Wednesday put out a point-by-point critique of the climate content in the president's state of the union address.

And it was all done with a guarantee of complete anonymity for the donors who wished to remain hidden.

"The funding of the denial machine is becoming increasingly invisible to public scrutiny. It's also growing. Budgets for all these different groups are growing," said Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, which compiled the data on funding of the anti-climate groups using tax records.

"These groups are increasingly getting money from sources that are anonymous or untraceable. There is no transparency, no accountability for the money. There is no way to tell who is funding them," Davies said.

For years, progressives have been investigating the frightening level of influence that Koch Industries has in Washington. But now, there's evidence that the Kochs may not be the only source of secret cash for "Tea Party, Inc." And this radical right octopus of anonymous dirty money has tentacles potentially reaching deep into Nevada.

Many readers here are quite familiar with the dastardly deeds of NPRI, the "tea party" crusaders posing as a "serious" policy think tank. However, what we didn't realize before was NPRI playing an active role in launching what may now be the new "Tea Party, Inc." climate denial campaign.

In 2010, Washington Monthly investigated the roots of the burgeoning pseudo-journalism institutions of the radical right, and they traced the origins back to NPRI hiring an investigative journalist in 2008 to sniff for waste in LVCVA. That, in turn, inspired NPRI and other radical right organizations to create the Franklin Center, a central conservative-flavored hub for supporting right-leaning journalism projects. So what does this have to do with the new climate denial campaign? Today, The Guardian published more of its investigation of Donors Trust and revealed this.

The campaign against wind and solar power was led by a relatively new entity, the Franklin Centre for Government and Public Integrity. The Franklin Centre did not exist before 2009, but it has quickly become a protege of Donors Trust.

The Franklin Centre, headquarters barely one-tenth of a mile away from the nondescript Alexandria, Virginia town home of its funders, received $6.3m from the two funds in 2011. It was the second largest disbursement to any entity by the Donors that year, according to tax records. [...]

In 2011, Donors Trust helped the Franklin Centre expand its media operations to Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia, the Centre for Public Integrity [CPI] reported in an investigation on conservative funding networks. [...]

CPI found multiple ties between the Franklin Centre and groups such as Americans for Prosperity, which has been funded by Donors Trust as well as the conservative oil billionaire Koch brothers. Some of the Franklin Centre's blogs have received funds from AFP. There was also cross-over of board members in the two groups.

This explains why AFP Nevada prodded Joe Heck to oppose the wind energy tax credit, despite the mounting evidence of Nevada's economy benefitting from wind energy! This also explains why AFP Nevada did that ridiculous gas stunt. It turns out that AFP is also part of the Donors Trust/Franklin Center effort to promote climate denial and stop action on climate change.

And that likely isn't the last we hear from them. Rather, expect even more howling from "Tea Party, Inc." as the new Boxer-Sanders climate bill is introduced in the Senate and "green-roots" activists push President Obama to direct the EPA to regulate carbon emissions if Congress can't. And with renewable energy investment continuing to be debated in Congress, expect another fight on that.

Against this backdrop, as well as the broad public support for climate action, we can see why the fossil fuel industry and "Tea Party, Inc." are funneling dirty money to shadowy groups out to promote climate denial. They want to make it hard to achieve anything. That's why the "green-roots" must be prepared to fight back. With human survival in the balance, environmentalists must find a way to break past this secret money and get the ball rolling on climate action.

Another NPRI #FAIL for Today

Here's something I almost missed in today's Las Vegas Sun. Guess who opposes the Henderson Library initiative?

Oh, yes. That's right. They're back!

Victor Joecks, communications director for NRPI, a local libertarian think tank, said tax proponents are being sensationalist and he believes the libraries are relatively healthy given the current state of the economy.

“It’s not this all-or-nothing proposition that’s being put out there,” Joecks said. “The system has grown very healthfully, faster than population growth would dictate. They take the high-water mark for funding, then say they have been cut so much from that high-water mark and now we need a tax increase. ... The library system is doing very well. This is a choice between growing at a rapid rate or an exorbitant rate.”

The library district is independent from the city of Henderson, and the majority of its $7 million budget comes from property taxes. The district’s prerecession funding high was approximately $10 million. The district expects property values to continue to slide in the next few years, further decreasing its funding. It argues the Galleria and Malcolm library branches will be shuttered if the tax initiative, which would raise property taxes by 2 cents per $100 in assessed value, does not pass.

Thomas Fay, Henderson Library District executive director, said efficiencies have been exhausted. The library has cut hours numerous times, and at the beginning of October, district libraries started closing on Mondays. The number of full-time equivalent staff hit a high of 101 in 2009, just after the district reopened a renovated Green Valley branch that had been transferred in 2005 from the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District. In fiscal 2011, the Henderson district had the equivalent of 86.5 full-time employees. Fay said staff from Malcolm and Galleria branches have been finding new jobs amid the uncertainty, and the total staff currently stands at the equivalent of 77.5 full-time employees. He is holding off on hiring anyone until after the tax initiative vote.

If the initiative is approved, the district is estimating a revenue boost of approximately $1.5 million in the first year of collection, fiscal 2013-2014.

“This doesn’t fix everything,” Fay said. “We’ve lost $2.5 million, heading toward $3 million, a year. We feel we have put in a lot of efficiencies, and this is just enough to get us through the next 10 years.”

Clearly, the dittoheads at NPRI don't know shit. After all, they're the ones who are working to defeat the bipartisan school bond initiative just to make an ideological point. Have they even been to any of the Henderson Libraries lately?

I have. And I have seen with my own two eyes how one of them has fallen into disrepair.







And I have experienced firsthand the shortened business hours, ongoing staff cuts, and other effects of recent budget cuts at the Henderson Libraries. If the initiative fails, not only will there be more cuts, but entire libraries will close! Clearly, the "tea party" dittoheads at NPRI are so trapped in their narrow ideological fantasy-land that they can't discuss the dire straits of our local libraries here in the real world.

The Henderson Library District is just asking for $7 per $100,000 in property value per year. That's it. And that's just to maintain what it now has. Seriously, this is what NPRI is attacking.

And this is why no rational human being should take NPRI seriously.

Why Did the Frog Give the Scorpion a Ride?

And the beat goes on. Never mind the current state of our schools...



NPRI wants to make an ideological point.

Even when NPRI sued the School District this summer — threatening to derail the tax question from appearing on the ballot — the nonprofit organization maintained it wasn't a political move.

On Tuesday, NPRI seemed to have finally taken a public stance on the issue.

NPRI spokesman Victor Joecks published an article on its website that blasted the district's tax-increase campaign as a "bait and switch" effort that would "hurt families (and) seniors, without increasing student achievement."

"The CCSD machine is, once more, waving the bait," Joecks said. "Don't bite.

What makes this story so funny in such a sick way is that that very CCSD machine aided and abetted NPRI earlier this year.

Many tried to warn CCSD administrators not to get too cozy with NPRI. After all, NPRI's goal is to starve public education to death! What on earth made Dwight Jones and Amanda Fulkerson believe that Victor Joecks and his merry band of "think tank" teabaggers cared one iota about improving public education? No matter how often they'd let NPRI stooges "slip" into CCSD's secure email network meant for official school business only, NPRI would eventually reach this point and sting them like this. [...]

They really should have known better. NPRI doesn't give a shit about our kids suffering under excessive heat and cold in decrepit public schools. If that means its PR hacks can spin the "OUTRAGE!!!" into further dismantling CCSD altogether and privatizing even more of what should be public education, then NPRI is happy. Frog, meet scorpion.

I said that just over two months ago, and I still stand by it today. Not only are attacking teachers and lying about finances bad policy, but they just make no political sense. Yet because CCSD administrators were so damned shortsighted in cozying up to NPRI in order to bloody local teachers, ironically enough NPRI has reemerged... But now, they're fighting to defeat CCSD administrators and the bipartisan backed school bond initiative meant to fix our broken school infrastructure.

If CCSD leaders had just negotiated with teachers in good faith, come clean on their finances, and refrained from giving aid and comfort to their true ideological enemies (at NPRI), they wouldn't be facing the kind of political pickle that they face now. But instead they played with "TEA" fueled fire, and now they're at risk of being burned. And to make things worse, Clark County students are at risk of being burned, too.

Frog, Meet Scorpion.

This morning, I was reminded of this fable.

The Scorpion and the Frog is a fable about a scorpion asking a frog to carry him across a river. The frog is afraid of being stung during the trip, but the scorpion argues that if it stung the frog, the frog would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog agrees and begins carrying the scorpion, but midway across the river the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. When asked why, the scorpion points out that this is its nature. The fable is used to illustrate the position that the behaviour of some creatures is irrepressible, no matter how they are treated and no matter what the consequences.

Believe it or not, this fable is coming to life right here in Southern Nevada. But alas, how could this be. Well, this is why I'm writing about it today. Here are The Scorpion & The Frog.

The Nevada Policy Research Institute filed a complaint with the 8th Judicial District Court on Friday alleging the Clark County Debt Management Commission violated the Nevada Open Meeting Law.

The commission — composed of three Clark County commissioners and representatives from local city governments and the School Board — voted during its June 7 meeting to approve a ballot question that seeks voter approval on a new property tax to fund school construction and rehabilitation projects.

The cash-strapped School District is pursuing a new capital improvement plan to address $5.3 billion in school maintenance needs over the next decade. The School Board — supported by four former first ladies of Nevada — are pushing for a six-year capital levy that is expected to raise property taxes as much as $74 a year on a home with an assessed valuation of $100,000.

CCSD administrators really believed NPRI's spinmasters when they "offered to help" them "take care" of all those "pesky teachers". So CCSD admin went out of their way to please their new political soulmates. Even if it meant hurting CCSD students, they cut and cut and cut away while continuing to find new ways to deny teachers their fair pay.

So what are CCSD bosses getting in return? Oh, just a law suit from NPRI aiming to block that capital bond initiative they so direly need from ever reaching this fall's ballot. I know, what a way to show gratitude!

Frog, meet scorpion.

Many tried to warn CCSD administrators not to get too cozy with NPRI. After all, NPRI's goal is to starve public education to death! What on earth made Dwight Jones and Amanda Fulkerson believe that Victor Joecks and his merry band of "think tank" teabaggers cared one iota about improving public education? No matter how often they'd let NPRI stooges "slip" into CCSD's secure email network meant for official school business only, NPRI would eventually reach this point and sting them like this.

And now, our kids may end up suffering even more thanks to CCSD's idiocy and NPRI's pure evil.

Suspect is the timing of NPRI’s lawsuit, which comes just five days shy of the 60-day deadline to file a complaint on open-meeting law violations, Haldeman said. Today is the deadline for open-meeting law violations on the June 7 debt management commission meeting.

“If (NPRI) were really interested in the open-meeting law, why would they wait until now to file this lawsuit?” [Joyce Haldeman, the School District’s associate superintendent of community and government relations] said. “It sounds to me like a political maneuver.” [...]

Brager said the commission will hear the ballot initiative again in August to conduct a re-vote “in an abundance of caution.” Both Brager and Haldeman said they were confident the lawsuit would not impact the ballot measure in November.

“It’s important for the children of Clark County because we have AC units that are old and have no lifetime in them anymore,” said Brager, who has had four generations of her family attend Clark County schools. “Children in our community deserve to be able to sit in a classroom that can contain heat and cold.”

They really should have known better. NPRI doesn't give a shit about our kids suffering under excessive heat and cold in decrepit public schools. If that means its PR hacks can spin the "OUTRAGE!!!" into further dismantling CCSD altogether and privatizing even more of what should be public education, then NPRI is happy. Frog, meet scorpion.

Why Is Nevada's "School Czar" Speaking at Anti-Education "Tea Party" Event?

So Nevada's Superintendent of Public Instruction will be in town soon. And he isn't just coming to enjoy the lovely summer heat. Rather, he will be here for a NPRI event.

No, I'm not kidding. And really, we shouldn't be surprised at all.

John L. Smith warned us back in March. James Guthrie has stated before that he does NOT support fully funding public education. He came here to Nevada from a right-wing think tank. And his appointment by Governor Brian Sandoval was praised... By none other than NPRI. Oh sure, there's nothing to see here.

But really, there is. After all, Guthrie is speaking at NPRI just as they are attacking Clark County teachers and pushing CCSD Administration to attack local teachers as well. In fact, CCSD Administrators have even gone out of their way to waste money on other items so they can have an excuse to pink slip teachers and continue on their union busting mission!

And Nevada Superintendent of Public Instruction James Guthrie is coming here to speak to NPRI.

What's really going on here? Guthrie is certainly coming at an interesting time. I wonder what kind of "words of encouragement" he will offer to NPRI. It's just the kind of funky timing that I can't ignore.

So why is Nevada's "Education Czar" talking public education at an event being held by an organization thats dedicated to destroying public education? And why is he speaking to them right when they're waging war on Southern Nevada's teachers as they aim to bust their union? I smell something fishy here.

Wherein CCSD Uses NPRI to Attack Teachers

There's something seriously wrong here. Do you notice it?

On Friday, NPRI sent an email bulletin to 12,000 teachers through the district’s email system, Interact. The unsolicited email blast drew the ire of several teachers, who accused the district of providing their work email addresses to NPRI.

“It’s another in a long line of attempts by the district to intimidate union members to drop their membership,” said Daniel Barber, a social studies teacher at Durango High School who received NPRI’s email on Friday. “This is an example of divide and conquer.”

However, the School District did not disseminate a list of teacher emails, said spokeswoman Amanda Fulkerson. District officials do not know how NPRI was able to gain access to teachers’ work email addresses, she added.

There are more than 40,000 employee email addresses in the district’s Interact communication system. Although the district’s four unions representing administrators, police, support staff and teachers are able to use the email system to contact their constituents, outside groups — such as vendors and non-union political groups — are not privy to this email database, Fulkerson said.

So an NPRI email asking CCSD teachers to drop their union (CCEA) was sent through CCSD's OFFICIAL, CLOSED email system... And CCSD's official Baghdad Bob spokesperson can not say how this happened? Are you f**king kidding me??!!

Maybe it's too difficult for The Sun to figure out, but hopefully it's not for you. And if you need a refresher on what's happening, here you go.

If the arbitrator had found evidence demonstrating that CCSD couldn't fill contractual obligations, he probably would have cut them some slack. However, the real evidence proved otherwise. Was he just supposed to ignore the facts and play Dwight Jones' game of make believe, where the district supposedly can't afford to pay teachers the salary step and education benefits long promised but (until now) never fulfilled, yet it can somehow afford to dump money into tons of iPads and "administrative support staff"? Give me a break!

Oh, and did I mention that teachers had to pay out of their own pockets for college courses that CCSD deemed necessary to qualify for the long promised education benefits? And that CCSD not only wanted to deny teachers future raises, but they even wanted to raid their bank accounts and take away past salary increases? So we were talking about a potential triple whammy where CCSD teachers would have had money taken out of their pockets, future salary increases denied, and all this debt left over from college courses that meant nothing? And media pundits like Coolican wonder why those "greedy teachers" were demanding justice?

Again, the arbitrator found that CCSD could indeed afford to pay teachers what they had earned. And yes, local teachers have had to work overtime and pay out of their own pockets to do their job. So why were they somehow required to roll over and accept the kind of torture that Dwight Jones wanted to subject them to?

This is what's really happening. The Nevada View broke this story last week, but apparently the facts were too hard for most of the local media to understand. Simply put, CCSD Administration has declared war on the teachers and their union. Las Vegas, welcome to Wisconsin.

It's no secret that CCSD Administration has been fighting the teachers' union rather than negotiating in good faith. So should we really be surprised that it is now allowing the rabidly anti-union NPRI to use its email system to spam teachers with anti-union infomercials? This is truly a bridge too far!

This is disgusting. This is outrageous. And seriously, this needs to end ASAP.

The irony here isn't lost on me. NPRI always claims to be interested in "private solutions for the public good". But now, it's using CCSD (as in public!) resources to spread its "tea party" message and bully teachers into dropping their union? How Scott Walker of them.

And when did Dwight Jones declare his allegiance to teabaggers? Doesn't he know that they want to defund and destroy public education? Doesn't he realize that NPRI won't be satisfied until CCSD is dead and replaced by voucher supported private schools? Is he so blinded by his desire to bust the union and break the contracts with teachers that CCSD had agreed to that he's willing to declare "the enemy of his enemy" as his new BFF?

This is just plain disgusting on so many levels.

Meet the New Nevada GOP Chairman (Or What a Fool Believes)

And looky here, none other than the hacks "esteemed luminaries" at NPRI are out to give Nevada Republican Party Chair Michael McDonald a proper introduction.

In April 2009, the city council gave McDonald a sweetheart deal, selling him a 3.9-acre parcel of land for $1.3 million. They did so with full knowledge that McDonald planned to immediately spin off the property to a supermarket chain for $3.1 million — netting himself a quick $1.8 million by shorting taxpayers on the value of their land.

Moreover, McDonald was convicted of violating city ethics laws involving another land deal that he pushed for while a member of the city council in 2000.

Redevelopment financing is an area where those with political connections routinely exploit low-income taxpayers. However, the city council's current deal with their ethics-challenged former colleague — against the advice of city staff — blatantly rubs salt in the eyes of citizens.

And just recently, we saw this.

That's when Las Vegas city council members voted to award their former colleague Michael McDonald $3.5 million in redevelopment funds, as well as $1.1 million in federal grant funding to subsidize the cost of constructing a downtown housing development that will include some "affordable" housing units for seniors. McDonald was also awarded a 75-year land lease — worth $1.4 million in present value — for just one dollar.

City council members voted to approve the project even though city staff recommended they not do so.

Staff noted that the city's subsidy alone would amount to more than $115,000 per unit. (McDonald's estimates were much lower — about $65,000 each for the first 60 units — although, once the state subsidies sought by McDonald are factored in, total taxpayer support would amount to $183,000 per unit.) Yet the median value of existing homes in the surrounding area is only $72,000.

Oh, jeez. This may be the first (and perhaps ONLY) time I quote a NPRI publication!

So basically, Michael McDonald ran into quite a bit of trouble while he was on the Las Vegas City Council. And even though he's no longer on it, he's still using his "juice" at City Hall to get sweetheart deals. And now, he's the Chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, the party of crazy anti-government teabaggers "NO BIG GUV'MINT! NO BALE-OWTZZZ!!!"



But wait, there's more!

Yesterday, former City Councilman Michael McDonald was elected as the Chairman of the Nevada State Republican Party Central Committee replacing former Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian, who stepped down the day after the Nevada Republican caucuses in February.

Former Las Vegas City Councilman Michael McDonald has a very checkered past, he was connected to one of the biggest FBI sting operations in Las Vegas history, which was dubbed the “G-Sting”.

The “G-Sting” involved organized crime, strip clubs, politicians and the FBI. And Michael McDonald was front and center, giving advice to his “boyhood friend” and owner of the strip clubs Michael Galardi, who owned Jaguars, Cheetahs and Masters strip clubs.

Remember G-Sting? Apparently, Nevada Republicans don't. Either that, or they followed Chuck Muth's advice to not care about that pesky, minor stuff.

What a fool believes...

#NVLeg & The Taxing Conversation

I guess The R-J tried to redeem itself today (after posting its FAIL-o-rific Legislature "election analysis" on Monday) by posting this much more thoughtful and insightful piece on SD 11. Aaron Ford ran as the Democratic nominee in SD 12 (against Doc Hardy) in 2010, but this time he's in much safer waters in the race to replace Mike Schneider in the new SD 11 that runs from Spring Valley to Southwest Vegas. He's the Senate Democratic Caucus pick, so one would think he'd have a much easier ride this time...

But alas, this time he has trouble in the Democratic Primary. Harry Mortenson may be 81 years old, but that isn't stopping him from dreaming big, thinking aloud, and running for the Senate seat that covers much of the turf he represented in the Assembly for 14 years. But funny enough, the biggest wedge between Mortenson and Ford (who, by the way, is 39) probably won't be age. Instead, it looks to be taxes. Yes, you heard me right. Ford seems to be willing to wait and see how Brian Sandoval's tax extension plan works out in the next year, while Mortenson believes we just need to implement a corporate income tax already so we can have more fairness and reliable income streams in our budget.

But wait, there's more.

On Monday, Senator Greg Brower (R-Reno) ran into huge trouble when Jon Ralston called him to the mat for his flip-flop on the sunset taxes (that Brian Sandoval now wants to extend indefinitely) on "Face to Face".



This morning, Ralston ripped him a new one on his inconsistent and insincere "change of heart".

First, Brower told me Sandoval wanted to “take advantage of the revenue sunset taxes would bring, and I support him in that.” Solidly, it seemed.

But just a few moments later, his feet of clay on the issue became evident when pressed: “This is just at the planning phase. We haven’t voted on anything yet. Nothing is final.” And then the coup de lack of grace: “This takes the issue off the table in terms of politics.”

Governor, about those troops behind you: Ever heard of friendly fire?

Brower’s rhetorical peregrinations then took him to reaffirm his support for the governor and promise not to cut education. But he also said this is just “for planning purposes,” and when asked about committing to extend the taxes, replied, “No one has committed to that. What we’ve supported is the governor’s idea to plan to have the revenues.”

Really?

The governor’s office’s reaction was unequivocal: “In order to avoid cuts to education and other essential services, revenues from the sunset taxes will need to be continued.” Sandoval seems ... committed.

During the interview, Brower told me about the clear contrast he will have with Leslie. But if they both support extending taxes and both oppose education cuts, where’s the big difference? And while we know where Leslie will vote on almost any tax increase, how do we know which Greg Brower will cast a vote?

Good point, Mr. Ralston. Good point.

And this is what we've been talking about all along. Is Brian Sandoval's newfound embrace of the sunset taxes just a political stunt meant to blunt Democratic candidates' talking points on education funding and outside grassroots campaigns for tax initiatives on the ballot? And even if Sandoval is sincere about providing a more robust and reliable stream of public education funding, will Chuck Muth, NPRI, and their army of "tea party" culture warriors ever really allow for enough moderation in the Republican Caucus to allow for a grown-up conversation on taxes and responsible budgeting?

Greg Brower managed on Monday to expose several "dirty little secrets" that Sandoval's inner circle would rather bot discuss. And unfortunately for them, Ralston is taking pleasure in raising a stink about it.

But oddly enough, this and Mortenson's candor are renewing my hope. Why? Let me explain.

Governor Sandoval and his PR team had expected to destroy all honest debate on tax reform with their "surprise sunrise of the sunset taxes". But if Republican candidates like Brower suggest they're not really meaning what Pete Ernaut wants them to say, and if Democratic candidates like Harry Mortenson and Pat Spearman keep raising hell on the left over real tax reform, and if tax initiative backers refuse to stand down on their efforts to pull some "ballot box budgeting" that goes against Carson City conventional wisdom, then can Brian Sandoval keep acting like there's nothing for us to see or discuss?

Maybe it was premature to declare tax reform "dead" after all. Greg Brower's constant flip-flopping should serve as a reminder to Team Sandoval that "Tea Party, Inc." won't go down on "Sunrise to Sunsets" without a fight. And Brower's flip-flopping should serve as a reminder to us that we won't ever realize a stable budget and sound governance until we have an honest conversation on bringing Nevada's tax code into the 21st century once and for all. Brian Sandoval may be trying to bring back the era of "bipartisan" budgetary gimmicks, but perhaps those on the left, right, and center can still ultimately conspire to declare that era of Nevada history over.