Selling Us Their Vision For The Nevada Government Utopia
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
As a member of the Nevada Vision Stakeholders group I had the opportunity during 2010 to be part of, producing this proposed “Vision” for Nevada’s future. The actual construction of the document we gave approval to (after some revisions) was the consultants’ work carried out by Moody’s Analytics. During the construction phase we were involved in a number of four-hour stints of putting forth and exchanging our thoughts, ideas, viewpoints on a framework of quality of life components assigned as being important factors by the Nevada Legislature in Senate Concurrent Resolution (SCR) 37.
These key areas included:
Included in the overall program for SCR 37, in addition to the Vision Stakeholders Group, was a “review” of Nevada’s public revenue structure – with recommendations to the Interim Finance Committee. Most of the bullet points for this tax study focused on the structure and ability of the tax system to produce the adequate revenue required (especially to fund the “vision” areas which naturally would require more funding to achieve).
Along the way “stuff happened” and Moody’s failed to deliver on the tax part of the project.
As the Vision Stakeholders wrapped up our last meeting there wasn’t any indication of what the plan would be for what was next – at least based on the discussions of the Vision Stakeholders. It would seem others had in mind exactly where things would go from here – taking us in the 2011 Nevada Legislature and down the path of making our “Quality of Life” advance!
We are now seeing the emerging operations of the campaign to sell Nevada it’s vision, starting with this event to set the context of how important it is to embrace the necessity of more Nevada Government. Even more staging of the strategy and the public relations presentation played themselves out at this event .
It’s too bad that the tax part of the scheme didn’t get done. Boy, Moody’s sure let us down on that…
But wait – what do we have here ? My…my it would seem that this could work, couldn’t it? Let’s see there’s the part we need to have about Nevada’s “structural deficit” – there’s “documentation” that Nevada’s tax options are rather limited (not enough revenue coming in from enough sources) – there’s even the proposal which reads…
There you go, lucky for us that this Brookings Mountain West (and others also involved in putting their names on the paper) “region wide” study fits our circumstances so well – how fortunate and serendipitous that such a tax study might come along in time for the impending Legislative session! Do you suppose we might be able to use this good fortune and accomplish what Moody’s didn’t get done with this highly acclaimed review of the cyclical and structural deficits in California and the Intermountain West?
I guess we’ll just have to wait until the Nevada Legislature gets underway and the listen to the spontaneous discussions that take shape in theTaxation (oops, I meant “Revenue”) Committee…
As a member of the Nevada Vision Stakeholders group I had the opportunity during 2010 to be part of, producing this proposed “Vision” for Nevada’s future. The actual construction of the document we gave approval to (after some revisions) was the consultants’ work carried out by Moody’s Analytics. During the construction phase we were involved in a number of four-hour stints of putting forth and exchanging our thoughts, ideas, viewpoints on a framework of quality of life components assigned as being important factors by the Nevada Legislature in Senate Concurrent Resolution (SCR) 37.
These key areas included:
- Education
- Health and Human Services
- Public Safety
- Economic Diversification
- Job Creation
- Transit
- Energy Use
Included in the overall program for SCR 37, in addition to the Vision Stakeholders Group, was a “review” of Nevada’s public revenue structure – with recommendations to the Interim Finance Committee. Most of the bullet points for this tax study focused on the structure and ability of the tax system to produce the adequate revenue required (especially to fund the “vision” areas which naturally would require more funding to achieve).
Along the way “stuff happened” and Moody’s failed to deliver on the tax part of the project.
As the Vision Stakeholders wrapped up our last meeting there wasn’t any indication of what the plan would be for what was next – at least based on the discussions of the Vision Stakeholders. It would seem others had in mind exactly where things would go from here – taking us in the 2011 Nevada Legislature and down the path of making our “Quality of Life” advance!
We are now seeing the emerging operations of the campaign to sell Nevada it’s vision, starting with this event to set the context of how important it is to embrace the necessity of more Nevada Government. Even more staging of the strategy and the public relations presentation played themselves out at this event .
It’s too bad that the tax part of the scheme didn’t get done. Boy, Moody’s sure let us down on that…
But wait – what do we have here ? My…my it would seem that this could work, couldn’t it? Let’s see there’s the part we need to have about Nevada’s “structural deficit” – there’s “documentation” that Nevada’s tax options are rather limited (not enough revenue coming in from enough sources) – there’s even the proposal which reads…
“Nevada for example, has one of the least diversified tax systems in the country, and relies disproportionately on sales and gaming revenue. Consideration could be given there to variants of the new business activity taxes, like the commercial activities tax in Ohio or the “margins” tax in Texas, since these gross receipts taxes may not run afoul of the state’s constitution.”
There you go, lucky for us that this Brookings Mountain West (and others also involved in putting their names on the paper) “region wide” study fits our circumstances so well – how fortunate and serendipitous that such a tax study might come along in time for the impending Legislative session! Do you suppose we might be able to use this good fortune and accomplish what Moody’s didn’t get done with this highly acclaimed review of the cyclical and structural deficits in California and the Intermountain West?
I guess we’ll just have to wait until the Nevada Legislature gets underway and the listen to the spontaneous discussions that take shape in the
Posted by Doug Busselman at 1/8/2011 5:42 AM 
Categories: Nevada Vision Project
Tags: Nevada Vision Project budgets Tax Study
Categories: Nevada Vision Project
Tags: Nevada Vision Project budgets Tax Study
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