Who’s Money Do You Want To Take?
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
As this post is being drafted I’m listening in to the third day of the Legislative Commission Budget Subcommittee and the presentation of Chancellor Dan Klaich on the budget of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Not surprisingly, Chancellor Klaich is elegantly describing the impending disaster which will befall Nevada, college students and their families if the Legislature goes along with the budget proposal offered by Governor Brian Sandoval.
Structuring his remarks to highlight the degree of budget reduction burden placed on the Higher Education System (both in terms of the total dollar amounts and the percentage of reduction). The numbers are significant, which partially reflects the overall level of state funds that currently go to the state’s Higher Education System…ranking as the third largest recipients of Nevada General Fund dollars, behind only K-12 Education and Health & Human Services.
The bottom line, take home message of Chancellor Klaich’s remarks to the Legislators – “don’t cut our general fund dollars to the levels that have been proposed by Governor Sandoval.”
Thank you to Assemblyman Pat Hickey of Reno, who pointedly asked Chancellor Klaich about who he thought should be taxed to pay for the funds that he wants to have available to spend. This question should be the same, publicly poised to each person who maintains that their state spending levels shouldn’t be reduced.
Chancellor Klaich responded by first suggesting that he wasn’t going to get into the specifics of who should be taxed, but then continued to come to a theme that he would like to participate in an overall discussion of the options that might be workable alternatives. He went on to say that Nevada currently has an outdated tax code which doesn’t reflect the current realities of our modern economy.
Perhaps this first step of surfacing the idea of “who should be taxed” will get things started, possibly setting the stage for legitimate, open and transparent policy evaluations. Up to this point and the tenure of the beginning process we would anticipate that the strategy is to hide the tax matter until the restructured/increased budgets have been committed to – and there’s no turning back so darn it all to heck we’re going to have up taxes.
Tax committees (or rather the Assembly Taxation Committee and the more politically-correctly named Senate “Revenue” Committee) should proceed from the start with hearings on proposed tax legislation…instead of holding behind closed door meetings and mock hearings on what might be put into a proposal at the end of the session…or running tax increase bills through “committees of the whole” or “finance committees”.
As the debate on the reductions to spending continues to evolve and the posturing is determined to build up the legitimacy of how one sector is more entitled to others and thereby shouldn’t be cut to the degree as has been proposed by the Governor – the question each and everyone should answer… “who’s money do you want to take?” Should there be redistribution of the money in the current budget and cutting things differently? Should there be more money taken from the private sector through tax increases? If the answer to the question is the second – “who’s money are you going to take?” – and what will be the methods used to do the taking?
As this post is being drafted I’m listening in to the third day of the Legislative Commission Budget Subcommittee and the presentation of Chancellor Dan Klaich on the budget of the Nevada System of Higher Education. Not surprisingly, Chancellor Klaich is elegantly describing the impending disaster which will befall Nevada, college students and their families if the Legislature goes along with the budget proposal offered by Governor Brian Sandoval.
Structuring his remarks to highlight the degree of budget reduction burden placed on the Higher Education System (both in terms of the total dollar amounts and the percentage of reduction). The numbers are significant, which partially reflects the overall level of state funds that currently go to the state’s Higher Education System…ranking as the third largest recipients of Nevada General Fund dollars, behind only K-12 Education and Health & Human Services.
The bottom line, take home message of Chancellor Klaich’s remarks to the Legislators – “don’t cut our general fund dollars to the levels that have been proposed by Governor Sandoval.”
Thank you to Assemblyman Pat Hickey of Reno, who pointedly asked Chancellor Klaich about who he thought should be taxed to pay for the funds that he wants to have available to spend. This question should be the same, publicly poised to each person who maintains that their state spending levels shouldn’t be reduced.
Chancellor Klaich responded by first suggesting that he wasn’t going to get into the specifics of who should be taxed, but then continued to come to a theme that he would like to participate in an overall discussion of the options that might be workable alternatives. He went on to say that Nevada currently has an outdated tax code which doesn’t reflect the current realities of our modern economy.
Perhaps this first step of surfacing the idea of “who should be taxed” will get things started, possibly setting the stage for legitimate, open and transparent policy evaluations. Up to this point and the tenure of the beginning process we would anticipate that the strategy is to hide the tax matter until the restructured/increased budgets have been committed to – and there’s no turning back so darn it all to heck we’re going to have up taxes.
Tax committees (or rather the Assembly Taxation Committee and the more politically-correctly named Senate “Revenue” Committee) should proceed from the start with hearings on proposed tax legislation…instead of holding behind closed door meetings and mock hearings on what might be put into a proposal at the end of the session…or running tax increase bills through “committees of the whole” or “finance committees”.
As the debate on the reductions to spending continues to evolve and the posturing is determined to build up the legitimacy of how one sector is more entitled to others and thereby shouldn’t be cut to the degree as has been proposed by the Governor – the question each and everyone should answer… “who’s money do you want to take?” Should there be redistribution of the money in the current budget and cutting things differently? Should there be more money taken from the private sector through tax increases? If the answer to the question is the second – “who’s money are you going to take?” – and what will be the methods used to do the taking?
Posted by Doug Busselman at 1/27/2011 11:15 AM 
Categories: 2011 Nevada Legislature
Tags: Nevada Nevada Budget Taxing and Spending Governor Sandoval Nevada Legislature
Categories: 2011 Nevada Legislature
Tags: Nevada Nevada Budget Taxing and Spending Governor Sandoval Nevada Legislature
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