Democrats love to tell voters that Nevada is at the "bottom of every list ranking all 50 states."

In fact, though, they exhibit selective amnesia -- Nevada is not the cellar-dweller Democrats have made it out to be. A study released Wednesday by the Tax Foundation says Nevada has the fourth-best business tax climate in the country. By comparison, Nevada neighbors Arizona and California ranked 28th and 45th, respectively.

Nevada routinely tops state rankings in job growth and economic expansion. Its unemployment rate remains among the country's lowest.

Why won't Democrats acknowledge these rankings in their sound bites? Because the indexes they want to climb depend almost solely on tax revenue. To leapfrog dozens of states in education funding and Medicaid enrollment, the state would have to spend substantially more than it already does on schools and social services.

And where would all that money come from? The private sector, its perch atop so many rankings be damned.

Nevada Democrats and their "progressive" cheerleaders don't understand that a state's public services are only as healthy as its business climate. If tax increases retard companies' ability to grow, then subsequent government growth can't be sustained over the long term.

"Labor and capital are more mobile than ever," said Chris Atkins, staff attorney and co-author of the Tax Foundation's study. "In the global competition for jobs, no state can afford to be saddled with a tax system that unduly punishes new business investment."

Indeed, this is the very reason Nevada has lured so many businesses from high-tax states such as California. It's certainly one of the reasons why thousands of people still move to Nevada every month from places such as New York and New Jersey, which assumed their usual spots near the bottom the Tax Foundation's survey.

Plaudits for Nevada industry go on and on. In May, Inc. magazine named Las Vegas the nation's hottest "boom town" for entrepreneurs. In February, the Milken Institute put Las Vegas among its 20 Best Performing Cities, rating its economic performance and ability to create and sustain jobs in the top tier of 379 metropolitan areas surveyed. Entrepreneur magazine recently ranked Las Vegas the nation's fourth-best big city for new business. The state's overall business climate was ranked fifth late last year by Development Counsellors International of New York, just the third time a Western state has landed in the survey's top five since the economic-development marketing company launched its ratings 10 years ago.

Would Nevada's business tax climate be rated so high if the 2003 Legislature had succeeded in passing the "broad-based" gross-receipts tax coveted by Assembly Democrats and Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn? Probably not. As it stands, the record, scattershot tax hikes approved that year have created a substantial general fund surplus, unnecessarily confiscating hundreds of millions of dollars from Nevada tourists, consumers and businesses. That revenue could have gone toward job creation, pay raises or business expansions if it weren't sitting in the state treasury.

The state government already spends more than $2 billion per year on education and social services. If Nevada's schools and social services were truly in shambles -- if they're among the country's worst, as Democrats reason with their rank rhetoric -- businesses wouldn't be able to find or keep the workers and paying customers that allow these enterprises to prosper.

Democrats who covet a top state ranking in various spending indexes -- and the high taxes required to reach them -- should be careful what they wish for.