As you may recall, I wrote on Thursday about a grassroots activist, Todd Taxpayer, who has put forward a proposal to CUT taxes in the middle of this recession rather than raise them. A gaming executive at Harrah’s saw the proposal and sent Todd an email calling him an “idiot,” while obliquely defending the gaming giant’s support for tax hikes (on anyone other than themselves) this legislative session.
Apparently, this executive doesn’t believe the government should tighten its belt, lay off some workers and reduce operating costs. Instead, the government should just raise prices (taxes) to make up for the revenue shortfall.
Well, just a few hours after sending that poison-pen email to Mr. Taxpayer (you just gotta love that last name!), it was announced that Harrah’s had “ended company contributions to employee 401(k) plans and is trimming managers’ salaries by 5 percent.” This on top of the fact that “over the past year, Harrah’s has laid off at least 2,000 employees and has reduced workers’ hours.”
Oh, sweet irony. Harrah’s is doing exactly what Todd Taxpayer has suggested that Nevada’s government do!
You don’t see Harrah’s raising prices to keep their operation running at the same level it was before the recession hit. In fact, I’ll be in Las Vegas on Monday night to attend the monthly Nevada Policy Research Institute center-right coalition meeting on Tuesday, and Harrah’s published Premium Room rate for their Strip hotel that night is only $80…at least a third, if not half, off the going rate before the recession.
So who’s the “idiot” now?
