Fact:  Due to the 2/3 super-majority rule, Nevada Democrats cannot pass a tax increase without the votes of (at least) two Republican senators.

Fact:  No Republican senator would dare to vote for a tax hike without the blessing of Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio (R-Reno).

Conclusion:  Whether or not Nevada’s citizens, businesses and/or tourists get socked with a huge new tax hike in 2009 pretty much depends on Sen. Bill Raggio.

Action Item:  Call, fax, or email Sen. Raggio and respectfully urge him to oppose tax increases in these, the final days of the 2009 legislative session.

Toll-free Phone: 1-800-992-0973  or  1-800-995-9080
Fax: 1-775-786-1177
Email: wraggio@sen.state.nv.us

Action Item 2:  Forward this post to your friends!

Steve Wynn on Jon Ralston’s Face to Face:  “Anybody who raises taxes now is psychotic.”

How so?

He went through the state ledgers line by line and, applying some basic principles and setting a few reasonable priorities, came up with a proposed budget of $5.1 billion.  Which, unlike the budget proposed by the Nevada legislature, stays within our current revenue projections. 

Oh, wait, that’s right:  the state legislature still has not released their budget for public discussion.  Even though they’ve been meeting up in Carson City for months.

Said a legislator who asked not to be named, “I mean, come ON, guys.  This stuff is, like, really hard.”

Says Geoffrey Lawrence, the fiscal expert at NPRI who put the proposed budget together, ”The reason the legislature and governor haven’t been able to balance the budget is that they’ve been unable or unwilling to set priorities.”

Now we wait to hear what the Economic Forum has to say.  We expect they will project lower tax-revenue than previously anticipated.  And that lawmakers will then propose record or near-record tax increases.

If they do, remind them of the four basic principles that provided the basis for NPRI’s budget:  sensible prioritizing, consistent application of government rules and taxes, agency thrift, and “last in, first out” (the elimination of some programs created and funded by Nevada’s record 2003 tax increases – which never should have happened).

And in response?  The school district finally transfers her to another school in Boulder City.  The residents of which are still reeling from the arrest of a teacher/soccer coach on 84 counts of child porn related acts with his students.

These incidents are hair-raising and are black eyes for public school bureaucrats and the teachers union.  And they help make the case for public school reform and private school choice.

We need a coalition of strong, viable, committed education reform organizations in Nevada.  And they need staffers who can bend enough ears and raise enough funds to actually get something done in Carson City.

Any stepper-uppers?  I’ll be glad to post any/all such activities here!

“Thousands of people, many waving hand-painted signs and American flags, held tax day ‘tea parties’ Wednesday in Las Vegas and Carson City as part of a nationwide movement to protest what they consider excessive government spending.  At Sunset Park (in Las Vegas), an estimated 2,000 to 2,500 people gathered to hear speakers and express their views. Demonstrators along Eastern Avenue and Sunset Road attracted a stream of honks from passing traffic throughout the afternoon.”

 - Las Vegas Review-Journal, 4/16/09

 ”…In Carson City, an angry crowd of 2,000 demanded that legislators not increase taxes…in a protest outside the Legislative Building.  Legislative police and Carson City sheriff’s deputies said the gathering was the largest they had seen in more than 30 years in the state capital.”

 - Las Vegas Review-Journal, 4/16/09

 ”Sen. Maurice Washington, R-Sparks…said (the Carson City tea party) was the largest protest he has seen in his 16 years in Carson City. Estimates ranged from 2,000 to 3,000 people.”

 - Reno Gazette-Journal, 4/16/09

 ”More than 1,500 people waved signs, tea bags and American flags in front of the Legislature (in Carson City) on Wednesday as part of the national Tax Day Tea Party to protest what they said was reckless federal government spending. . . . Organizers said the movement developed organically through online social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and through exposure on Fox News.”

 - Nevada Appeal, 4/16/09

 ”(P)rotesters who attended a modern-day TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party at Sunset Park on Wednesday afternoon hope their actions in protesting high taxation, increased government spending embodied in the federal stimulus package and all things Obama will carry a similar message.  Metro Police estimated the crowd at between 1,500 and 2,000 people and said there were no problems at the event, which was one of dozens held nationwide.  Clark County Republican Party Executive Director Susane Crawford organized the event at Sunset Park. Speakers included officials of the Libertarian and Independent American Parties.”

 - Las Vegas Sun, 4/16/09

 ”This isn’t a Republican event, this isn’t a Democratic event.  This is an American event.”

 - Las Vegas conservative talk-show host Casey Hendrickson, speaking at the Las Vegas Tea Party

 ”Americans from both (major) political parties turned out on Wednesday. From reports I received, some speakers were booed if they got too partisan. The point? The point is that we’ve seen both Republicans and Democrats turn their back on the American people. Spending, spending, spending, and taxes, taxes, taxes. It is too much, and we’ve all had enough.”

 - Bobby Eberle, editor and publisher of GOPUSA.com, 4/16/09

“The modern-day Paul Reveres have had enough….  People have been venting their frustration since the global economy began its meltdown.  Citizens are angry watching the government spend billions and billions of dollars with no constraints in place, while they must juggle household budgets and income and wonder if they’ll have a job the following day.”

 - Lahontan Valley News editorial, 4/15/09

A few notes:

Bill’s opening quip – “I smell a rat” – made me roll my eyes.  And his contention that the Tea Parties are “not genuine” and are “funded by big Republican groups” and that the “timing is politically suspicious”…are ill-informed, wrong, and frankly, silly.

The TEA Party movement was and is a grassroots thing.  It started with a few small blogger-groups who organized some small demonstrations awhile back, and then the idea spread like wildfire online (”new media”) and on the “small” airwaves:  via blogs, email forwards, BlogTalkRadio, RFC Radio, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Ning networking sites, message boards, and chat rooms.

The biggest evidence that this is a grassroots effort is the lack of funding and the lack of central control/planning.  Here in Nevada, I’ve seen about a dozen different web pages posting  3 different locations and a dozen different time windows for the TEA (Taxed Enough Already!) Party events.  People got wind of the idea, liked it, and started organizing their own mini-events among their own friends and networks.  When they all show up today, it will be Big – but not because the mythical Vast Right Wing Consiracy and/or Big GOP is behind it.

Here in Las Vegas, there was/is NO BUDGET for our Tea Party event.  A few dozen very committed leader-volunteers and about 800 local volunteer-helpers spread the word about the event/rally.   The only money spent (that I’m aware of) was the $200 plunked down this past Friday by Chuck Muth of Citizen Outreach, for a picnic area at Sunset Park.  Chuck offered to do this when he got wind that we (the organizers and volunteers) were being told that local radio station KXNT – which wanted/wants to cover the event – could not set up a broadcast table, nor could we set up a small podium, mic, and sound/speakers, on or near the sidewalks at the designated protest areas.

Most of the people I know who are attending here have NEVER participated in a protest or a picket line.  General disgust and a wish to be heard has drawn them out.

Whatever the Snarkmeisters wish to say, the Tax Day TEA Parties are a grassroots, post-partisan/non-partisan thing.  People are simply fed up with the endless bailouts, lack of accountability and transparency, ridiculous earmarks, huge deficits, frightening federal budget, and the like.

(It’s official:  I will now start using the “2010 Elections” category I created the day after the election.)

Also said (as much as it disgusts me to repeat it here):

Mr. Reid now has more than $5 million on hand after starting the year with $3.3 million, said a Democratic official familiar with the Reid campaign’s first-quarter contribution reports, which are due Monday.

The official did not want to be identified discussing campaign-finance figures not yet made public.

The cash infusion will push his total contributions to $7.6 million for the 2010 re-election race, compared with the $9 million total he raised for the 2004 campaign. Since his 2004 election victory, the Reid campaign committee has given about $1 million to other Democratic candidates and party entities.

Mr. Reid scheduled a meeting with supporters and volunteers in Las Vegas this week to discuss the campaign, which is “already in full swing,” according to the Nevada state Democratic Party.

He plans to rally volunteers Tuesday at the Democratic Party Organizing Convention, in Clark County, Nevada. There, party officials say, Mr. Reid intends to retool the Obama grass-roots organization in the state to boost his re-election campaign.

“I think starting early is just being smart, not being cautious,” said Sam Lieberman, chairman of the Nevada state Democratic Party. “As much as Republicans would like to target the race, I don’t see a credible candidate emerging…”

(I told someone the other day that at least $20 million would be spent on the race between Reid and his challenger.  The person looked at me in disbelief.  Well, do ya’ believe me now…?)

From the other side:

Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), says the party is courting a strong challenger, but he’s not saying who that is.

We wait.  Oh My Stars !! do we wait, and hope, and pray, for Someone who can beat Harry Reid, who so deserves to lose his seat on The Hill.  Which is why:

Republicans say Mr. Reid will need an early start and deep pockets this time around.

“On a range of issues, he is to the left of the state,” NRSC spokesman Brian Walsh said. Nevada voters “know Harry Reid. They are just saying they don’t support him.”

The four-term incumbent consistently scores less than a 50 percent job-approval rating in Nevada, which, though then-Sen. Barack Obama carried it in the 2008 presidential elections, is generally more conservative than the Democratic Party national agenda Mr. Reid champions on Capitol Hill.

“There are a lot of folks who are upset with all the spending and what’s going on in the federal government,” said John Ellison, a longtime member of the Elko County Board of Commissioners in northern Nevada.

If and when a viable conservative candidate is announced, I pledge my blood, sweat, and tears to his/her campaign.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Chuck Muth
(702) 531-5551
April 11, 2009

Citizen Outreach Joins Las Vegas Tax Day TEA

Party/Rally/Picnic to Be Held at Sunset Park

(Las Vegas, NV) – Citizen Outreach Foundation has teamed up with citizen-volunteer Tax Day TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party organizers for the rally being held this Wednesday, April 15th, at Sunset Park in Las Vegas. Citizens unhappy with local, state and federal government taxing, spending, borrowing and bailing-out public policies will gather to voice and show their displeasure. More than 500 similar rallies will be held nationwide on the same day.

Since the Clark County Department of Parks and Recreation wouldn’t allow TEA party organizers to use the park unless they were having a picnic and rented one of the picnic areas, Citizen Outreach President Chuck Muth stepped up to pay the rental fee and officially host a “picnic” for rally participants from 11:30 am until 2:30 pm.

“The government said we had to hold a picnic in order to use their park, so I decided to host a ‘pork’ roast!” Muth said. “What could be more appropriate? So bring your blanket, your kids, your folding chairs and a picnic basket and join our protest against higher taxation and pork-barrel spending. Forget about work; Obama has you covered!”

Keynote remarks will be delivered around 1:00 pm by special guest Herman Cain. Cain is a national motivational speaker, a FOX News business commentator, and host of “The Herman Cain Show” on WSB 750 AM out of Atlanta, Georgia. He’s the former chairman of Godfather’s Pizza, as well as a former president of the National Restaurant Association. Cain also ran for the United States Senate in Georgia in 2004.

Additional scheduled speakers include:

* Susane Crawford, Las Vegas Tax Day TEA Party director

* Casey Hendrickson and Heather Kydd, talk-show hosts for KXNT-840 AM

* Wayne Allyn Root, the Libertarian Party’s 2008 presidential candidate

* Chris Hansen, former state chairman of the Indpendent American Party

* Geoffrey Lawrence, Fiscal Policy Director for the Nevada Policy Research Institute

* Elizabeth Crum, award-winning blogger of “E!! The True Conservative Story”

Sunset Park is located at the southeast corner of Sunset and Eastern near the airport. Picnic Area F is located in the southwestern section of the park near the dog runs. Use the south entrance off Eastern into the huge parking area adjacent to Picnic Area F.

For additional information, contact Susane Crawford at (702) 374-7733 or by email at edirector@clarkgop.org

I challenge you to read every single word.  Then, if you live in Nevada, take a moment to feel some deep-seated disgust at the passing of a neutered campaign finance disclosure bill that won’t even kick in until 2011.  Then contact your Assembly representative to demand that they give the bill’s balls back (and perhaps lend a pair to GOP Assemblyman James Settelmeyer, whose objections against the measure seem pretty wimpy).

And while you’re at it, contact Sec. of State Ross Miller’s office to suggest that they make online filing easier.  Chuck Muth said the following about the process as it exists now:

I have a PAC (political action committee) and once tried filing my [financial report] online.  And I gotta tell you, it was a royal pain in the you-know-what.  The process set up by the Secretary of State’s office is decidedly not user-friendly and is unduly complicated to navigate and complete.  No wonder so many candidates, PACs, and ballot advocacy groups opt to simply fill out the forms by hand.
 
Miller is on the right track pushing for online reporting, but he also needs to get his own house in order. It shouldn’t be too difficult to allow campaigns using, say, Quickbooks, to import the required information directly into the campaign reporting system at the SoS’s office instead of having to type it out separately a second time. 

Timely online transparency should be a requirement not only for campaign finance reporting, but for all publicly funded agencies and organizations.  It’s something we can all agree on – or should.

Subject link:  Check out the Nevada Project at Sunshine Review.

Now here’s the sort of talk we like to hear from a Republican governor…

“Common sense dictates that when you’re in a hole it’s vital you stop digging. Requiring our state to spend beyond its means for the next 24 months to be eligible for all the stimulus moneys guarantees that (our state) will dig itself a $740 million financial hole. Who helps us then? Do we raise taxes, and thereby weaken our competitiveness relative to other states and countries — or do we just summarily end programs for some of the neediest of our state?
 
“Or are we to plan on yet another round of stimulus windfall from Washington in two years — again, with money we don’t have? I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I do know the $740 million budget hole created would be the largest such hole in (our) state financial history.”

Unfortunately, that’s not Nevada’s tax-hiking Republican governor talking.  It’s a true conservative Republican governor talking:  South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. 

Wish there were more like him.  Wish he was our governor.