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June 20, 2003
The devil is in the detailsGov. Kenny Guinn will call legislators back in session June 25, six days before the start of the new fiscal year, for a second special session. Legislators adjourned last week, when they were just about to approve a spending plan, when a state senator from Las Vegas inserted a clause unaware to most legislators, permitting the expansion of neighborhood casinos. Entirely new legislation is routinely attached as amendments to other bills. I've been a proud Nevadan ever since I moved to this state in 1996, I told the devil. After all, what other state has such freewheeling western ways as a history of legal gambling and in what's still a unique tradition, legal brothels. There are the wide open spaces and over 100 mountain ranges. "Yeah, but what do states rights mean nowadays anyway?" the devil asked. "Look at Yucca Mountain. The governor said Nevadans don't want it, yet Congress overrode Gov. Guinn's veto and is making us accept the 77,000 metric tons of nuclear waste anyway, against our wishes. Look at medical marijuana, voters in Nevada and California passed the law but the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency still tells us it's illegal. And this from a president who ran for governor of Texas under a states rights platform of 'Letting Texans run Texas.' " "If the feds can't use strong-arm tactics they withdraw federal highway funds unless we lower the blood-alcohol rate for drunken driving to .08. States like Louisiana had to raise their drinking age to 21, back when the Vietnam War was raging and we figured if you were old enough to fight in a war, you were old enough to drink a beer," the devil said. I told him my Libertarian editors in Texas used to rail against taxpayer-supported schools. But how would we educate our kids if we shut down public schools? "Look, the Nye County School District pays an average of $7,534 per student. So pay me $37,670 and I'll teach five of the little rascals, earning a decent salary to boot." Yeah but that doesn't include transportation, athletics and things like that, I told the mischievous imp. "They can always join AYSO soccer and Little League," the devil said. I guess if public schools were closed parents could always send their kids to private schools like New Hope Fellowship, which charges $250 per month for tuition. That's if they have the money and want their kids to have lots of Christian indoctrination. I remembered a recent Nye County Commission meeting where the Beatty Justice of the Peace complained about a lack of Nevada Highway Patrolmen between Las Vegas and Tonopah. "Thank God," a high-ranking county official remarked, half jokingly. "Exactly," the devil replied. "The federal government grabs income tax out of our paycheck, claims it owns 86 percent of Nevada and decides what country we're going to invade this year. Local government likes to tell us what we can do with our property and taxes us for the privilege." And the state? I asked. "They like to regulate driving and pass trivial legislation. They're now letting school students carry cell phones again, but they're requiring seat belts in taxis. They also pass ridiculous bills like designating Orovada the official soil of Nevada and naming an official state tartan," the devil said. "Remember the long lines at the Nevada Division of Motor Vehicles when they converted to a new computer system? Then when you get to the counter you have to pay $197 to register a 2000 pickup," he said. "Now the state wants to levy a 10 percent entertainment tax. Have you seen how much it costs to see a show on the Las Vegas Strip nowadays? The seats for Celine Dion's new show are priced at $87.50 to $200, they want to add another $8.75 to $20 onto that?" the horned man asked. I'm pretty content with our legislators, I told him, Assemblyman Rod Sherer held public meetings in Pahrump this session and Mike McGinness, who is a veteran legislator, knows the ropes. Then again, that little devil started spouting off. "Yeah but when they're a shoo-in for election do you ever see how much money casino companies like Park Place Entertainment, Station Casinos and Mandalay Bay Resort Group pour into the campaigns of these state officials? Just look it up in the Secretary of State's website." "If the state wants more money, why don't they just raise the gaming tax from 6.25 percent? When Senator Joe Neal ran for governor he said the gaming tax hadn't been raised since 1987. I thought in Nevada everything was free, the casinos paid for everything." I guess the casinos do pay other taxes as well, I said. The gaming tax could go up a half-percent or a whole percent, but certainly not to 10.25 percent as advocated by Sen. Neal. "Does Carson City really care much about the Kingdom of Nye?" the devil asked. "All the lobbyists appearing in front of the Legislature are from Las Vegas, where they have the money to send them and the population, and Reno, which is only 35 miles away." Nye County has had its disagreements with the State of Nevada, I said. "Didn't you notice Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley's March 27 column in the Tonopah Times Bonanza entitled "Commissioners Corner?", the devil remarked. "She wrote about how the governor's chief of staff stood up for the state spending millions to fight Yucca Mountain at a Nevada Association of Counties convention in Lake Tahoe last November. Eastley wrote if it's inevitable we'll have to take everybody else's nuclear waste at least Yucca Mountain may create jobs in Nye County, meanwhile the governor's office hasn't uttered one word about plans by President Bush to resume full scale underground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. Which would pollute more?" Y'know, you're starting to actually make some sense, with your "devil-may-care" attitude, I said. But I guess even if the courts have to break the state legislative impasse we'll continue paying our state taxes, driving the speed limit and sending our kids to public school, I said. |
