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Special Session off to uncertain start
How things are going with the special session of the legislature’s efforts to plug a one billion dollar budget hole varies by who you talk to. But various flies on the wall indicate that there is a growing admission that the state budget will be fixed, but not just with cuts. There will be higher taxes and fees carefully focused on those individuals and industries that have the ability to pay. Namely, big gaming, mining and corporations. The low income and middle class, they say, are already shouldering a disproportionate amount of the load for supporting state services like education, public safety, medical care for the poor, elderly and the disabled.
But how much more can be extracted from mining, gaming and corporations is the subject of brutal power politics that will play out within party caucuses and among top legislative leaders. To complicate things, there is a series of vetoes threatened by Governor Gibbons should any bills calling for higher taxes or fees cross his desk that are not supported by those being asked to pay up. Gaming and mining moguls say they’re willing to pay more but nothing like the volume of dollars needed to fill the state’s gaping budget chasm.
Thousands of school teacher and state worker layoffs are hanging in the balance. Major reductions in state medical services are already occurring with more threatened. Federal lawsuits and other class-action challenges to Nevada’s “status quo” are already pending in the courts.
We’ll see what the next few days produce. “No new taxes” up against “no new resources, no future.”