Democrats' 2008 strategy: Cowering in silent fear

In his dual capacity as both a Republican and an ass, Gov. Jim Gibbons proposes to balance the state budget on the backs of working people. Even as gas prices go through the roof and the cost of everything else follows along, Nevada's dysfunctional governor, the nation's worst, has called a special session of the Legislature with the goal of eliminating pay raises for working Nevadans.

The governor and Republican allies such as state Sen. Bob Beers don't see it that way, because they don't view teachers, social workers, office workers and everyone else who is employed in the public sector as "working Nevadans."

They think of them as "public employees," or "government employees" or "lazy useless overpaid bureaucrats in a union sucking at the tit of the nanny state." A central tenet of the Gibbons-Beers agenda is a knee-jerk hatred of government, and the extremism to which they cling so bitterly manifests itself in, if not a hatred, at least a cavalier disrespect for your kid's seventh-grade English teacher.

So that's why Gibbons, Beers and Co. are happy to allow the state's already inadequate education system, physical infrastructure and social services to suffer damage that will only be more costly to repair in the future. That's what Republicans do.

But what's the Democratic Party's excuse?

While the Gibbons-Beers response to the state's budget crisis has consisted mostly of curling up in the tattered old security blanket of tiresome ideology, the response from the "loyal opposition" hasn't extended much beyond criticizing the Republican approach.

The loudest (only?) call to address the state's budget crisis in a fundamental manner -- which is to say in a manner Nevada so desperately and obviously needs -- from anyone with a significant position in the public sector has come not from an elected Democrat, but from higher education Chancellor Jim Rogers, who has proposed establishing a broad-based tax on businesses.

That grating yet piercing whine you hear is the sound of knee-jerk ideologues, eloquence at full bluster, howling in apoplectic exasperation that bidnesses never pay taxes because the taxes just get passed along to consumers.

As is often the case with things that angry conservatives say, well, if only it were true. Because if businesses could just pass taxes along, then they would have no reason to oppose the establishment of a broad-based business tax, and Nevada could pass one. For that matter, businesses, Republican politicians and their apologists in chambers of commerce and other well-funded conservative organizations wouldn't object to, say, abolishing the state's regressive sales tax and replacing that revenue with direct taxes on bidness.

Of course, Nevada businesses, at least those represented by the aforementioned chambers and well-funded right-wing organizations, strenuously oppose a broad-based tax, and tend to eagerly support shifting the tax burden down to consumers through sales taxes.

And Official Nevada is happy to let them slip the noose.

To the best of my knowledge (and if I'm wrong it's a mistake I will happily and readily admit), not a single Democratic legislator has endorsed a proposal to begin taxing profits of the likes of At&T, Cox Communications, Macy's, personal injury attorneys, Yucca Mountain contractor Bechtel Corp., gasoline wholesalers, strip clubs, endoscopy clinics and all the other industries, businesses and corporations, including some of the world's largest, that make oodles of money in Nevada but don't pay any tax on it.

The state does, however, tax Nevada's working families (people who, according to Gibbons and Beers, don't need a raise), because to compensate for letting business off the hook, Nevada depends on sales tax revenues.

If there was a hell, Nevada legislators and the voters who love them would end up there for allowing such a barbaric tax policy to continue. Under Nevada's tax structure, a single mother holding down two jobs is likely to pay much more, as a percentage of her income, in Nevada taxes than Dubai World, MGM-Mirage's United Arab Emirates-based partner in the massive City Center project, ever will.

And the Democrats aren't doing, or even saying, jack.

It's cowardice, of course, coupled with a bit of uncharacteristic party discipline wherein all the legislative Democrats have agreed that they won't say the word "taxes," and maybe that will make it harder for Republicans to attack them.

With Gibbons an emasculated joke, and Beers and the rest of the state Republicans eager to follow Gibbons off the policy cliff, Democratic candidates might be able to navigate their way to victory by saying nothing, smiling and nodding. With a couple breaks, that bobblehead political strategy could win control of the state Senate and a veto-proof supermajority in the Assembly.

If they can hang on to those majorities, they would be in the position to draw the map to their advantage when districts are reapportioned after the 2010 census. That could secure Democratic control of the Legislature for the next decade (and also gerrymander the third congressional district, currently held by keyboardist, insurance agent and War Party career politician Jon Porter, into a safe Democratic seat).

But let's say Democrats do manage to get control of the Legislature and even win the governor's office in 2010. What would they actually do?

Might we expect them to stop balancing the state budget on the backs of working families and turn instead to big businesses that pay nearly nothing and laugh all the way to the (in Nevada, mostly untaxed) bank?

It's hard to see why. The Democrats would still have their offices and their majorities to protect, so they would still be afraid of doing something that would allow the big bad Republicans to say they raised taxes.

The reasons to vote against Republican legislative candidates are obvious.

Sadly, the same can't be said of the reasons to vote for the Democrats.

Hugh Jackson is a longtime local journalist, former senior editor of CityLife and the proprietor of the Las Vegas Gleaner (www.lasvegasgleaner.com), where he blogs.