Did the budget deal help or hurt Nevada's business outlook? One sagebrush rebel’s opinion

Well the long and short of it is Yes and No. Yes while not reducing cost on everyone it did give smaller business a needed break with the modified business tax on employees that will help. The Business tax remains the same of $200.00 no change there. The real issues here is that concessions were won on both sides, the cost for every Nevadan is becoming hard to bear. The vast population is holding on to whatever monies they have. Service businesses are finding most customers are either not fixing problems or just waiting to see what happens. The reality the state of Nevada faces is that there is only so much we can do and much of it is a ban aide. The bleeding continues. For our entire legislature accomplished we throwing a life preserver into the water yet the water are still rising. We are still losing population, businesses are not expanding, and our tourist based economy is in dire need to diversify. And our tax base needs to be expanded. The reality is the economy is still contracting, and little was done in Carson City to slow that trend. The acting director of nuclear policy came out with a greatly negative letter to our local paper, did he not learn what compromise is. You can have a stance, yet the act to negotiate is imperative. Nevada will have little options if we have leaders that have no concept of negotiation. Our state needs that skill more than ever.





The main problem is that we have done little to take pressure off of our citizens, on a daily standpoint. National policies have taken much of the lead over state policy. With our state only having 13% of its land to tax we are faced with the only option is to raise taxes on that 13% of the land and its citizens. If we had the federally controlled land now occupied by the BLM, our counties, cities and state could benefit from an expanded tax base. I fully understand that the sagebrush rebellion died some years ago, but what choices do we have, if we do not pursue it once again. Whether it is a part of the negotiation with the federal government in terms of the Yucca debate or we tie it into the Obama care debate, the reality is that the state of Nevada has to gain in its tax base, yet we cannot continue to increase the tax on its citizens. Forget the income tax; we are in a situation where the real tax rate including all the fees, taxes and regulatory oversight on its citizens is maxed out. It leaves us with only a few real choices and this is top of my list. I am not a revolutionary at heart, but what choices do we have, we must push back on this topic, and bring it back to life.