By:  Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President

During the last election, because of the attention spotlighting Alaska (a Vice Presidential candidate and a public trial of a long-term state national representative) the “Bridge to No Where” got a lot of public notoriety.

Although the public perception for this funding was considered as a negative, we can’t help but wonder if there isn’t some parallel concepts in the highly acclaimed “Stimulus Bill”. 

Even though Nevada’s share of the stimulus is drawing fire for not being enough,  we can’t help but wonder if this is the worst of possible outcomes.

In evaluating the Stimulus Bill and comparing the “Bridge to No Where” I’m not so much focusing on the idea of “earmarks”, which we clearly understand aren’t part of the way in which the Stimulus Bill was created (wink, wink) – the point is more centered on the “one-shot” nature of the funding.

Here in Nevada, there is very active work dealing with details on figuring out how to plug state budget holes with Stimulus Bill money.  Concern levels are high that money might be left on the table, because of state funding shortages to reach qualification matches for such critical areas as education.

It would be interesting to see how it will play out if decisions are made to “enhance revenue” (that would be tax increases for those who don’t spend much time in the Legislative Building) in order to obtain Stimulus financial assistance. 

As we have pointed out on a number of occasions, the current Nevada “Budget Crisis” is more the results of a flattening flow of revenue into state coffers (although that might be changing as signs of a more weakened economy become evident).  If Nevada legislators don’t address the fundamental issue of their desire for ever-increasing spending levels, caulking the current holes with Stimulus money will not accomplish anything more than building a bridge to a place that won’t have an end point except a huge, abrupt ledge.

Increasing taxes, to finance the obsession of thinking that state spending has to increase every year, could easily result in even more of a down-turn as those being targeted for the increases could be caused to slip and fall by being tripped up by legislators reaching too deeply into hard-pressed business enterprises.

While the quest for finding a new, mystical tax structure, capable of producing more revenue (even as the entire economy is swirling around a large drain) seems rather illusive – not taking into account how much “help” we can afford from the federal Stimulus would be extremely irresponsible.

As Nevadans continue to watch and hopefully engage in the on-going discussions of building the state’s next two-year budget, we should maintain a vigilance and work to understand how much that budget relies on increased revenues.  We also should carefully weigh he consequences of where those revenues come from.