My evil alter-ego over on the Democrat side, blogger Mike Zahara, wrote the following on Saturday morning in his WatchdogWag.com blog:
“Has Chuck Muth Passed Away from Shock?: Normally, I get 75 emails a day from my buddy Chuck Muth informing of the evil of all taxes but only two so far on Sandoval’s change of heart on the soon-to-sunset ones!
“The Nevada Supreme Court intervened again and we now have a deal done if these knuckleheads would just accept the inevitable that some GOPers will support this now. Chuckles, I love ‘ya dude, but it’s not the taxes buddy, it’s the spending and what we’re spending tax money on!”
Actually, Mike’s 99 percent correct. It IS the spending. And it IS what we’re spending the money on. That absolutely, positively IS the problem.
But since liberals and Democrats won’t discuss and debate cuts to non-essential ($20 million to dig a tunnel under I-15 on F Street in Las Vegas) and illegitimate government spending (such as running its own emergency road service operation in competition with the likes of AAA), or set spending priorities (classroom teachers vs. administrators), the only way to FORCE such a discussion is to cut off government’s food supply….tax revenue.
And that’s why no-new-taxes is so critical in this public policy arena. No-new-taxes is not, as is often erroneously claimed, an ideology in and of itself. No-new-taxes is simply a means to the limited-government philosophical end; because no matter how much money you give to the left, or how many government programs you approve for them….it’s never enough.
Gimme, gimme, gimme.
So if you REALLY want to solve the state’s budget problem, give Zahara and I 48 hours, a line-by-line copy of the budget, a box of red pens and two cases of beer (make mine Black Butte Porter with a Jack Daniels chaser).
