There’s no place left to cut?

The Nevada state employees Web site reports (at http://nvemployees.wordpress.com/our-foes/) "There are many foes of state employees mostly from some elements of the press, Chambers of Commerce and the Casino industry in particular. Our main enemy is Governor Jim Gibbons who belives (sic) he can run a government based on a slogan of 'No new taxes.' "

At the beginning of the year, Gov. Gibbons warned state lawmakers that -- given the way the recession was reducing tax revenues -- if they wanted to keep all state offices open and all state employees working, they would be wise to consider rolling back the generous salary increases they had planned for those state employees, including their hidden "step" hikes.

If this makes Gov. Gibbons the "enemy" of the employees he's been elected to supervise, one wonders if these employees would also dub a doctor who warns them they have to go on a diet in order to stay alive their "enemy."

By April 30, again urging the lawmakers to balance the state budget without any sleight-of-hand tricks that depended on adopting overly rosy fiscal scenarios, Gov. Gibbons warned the lawmakers they should consider increasing the salary reductions for state employees, teachers and others beyond the 6 percent he'd proposed in January, based on expectations that state revenue projections for the coming biennium would be $350 million to $500 million less than what was projected in December.

To meet an additional $350 million shortfall, Gov. Gibbons recommended reducing state employee salaries by 11 percent.

Needless to say, his plan was met with nothing but hoots and catcalls by big-spending lawmakers and their media stenographers. In the end, state legislators beholden to the employee unions saw to it that many state workers this year received raises unheard of in today's struggling private sector.

Other states have had to be more realistic.

Rhode island will shut down state government for a total of 12 days over the next 10 months, saving $22 million. And the state public employee union has already given up a promised pay raise and agreed to have workers pick up more of their own health insurance costs.

Not in Nevada. Legislative leaders emerged from a closed-door meeting with Gov. Gibbons last week insisting that "nothing more can be cut" from the state budget, though an estimated shortfall of $2.4 billion could well prompt them to increase taxes again when the Legislature goes into session in 2011.

"What would you cut?" asked Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas. "Fifty-five percent of the budget is for education, 20 percent for health and human services. We cut all we could cut in the last session."

"There isn't a lot to cut," agreed Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno.

The only solution, they insist, is tax hikes. This is like a laid-off dad telling his family they can't sell the boat and stop eating steak -- the only answer is to start sticking up jewelry stores.

Hey, here's an idea: Stop beating around the bush with room taxes and car-rental taxes and entertainment taxes. Time for a flat thousand-dollar tax on each tourist, to be collected by shotgun-toting gangs right as they step off the plane or drive across the state line. That's sure to fill state coffers in a hurry! It's not as though tourists can just stay away.

Have lawmakers told new hires they'll have to start paying their own insurance premiums? Have they stopped granting welfare benefits to those with incomes above the federally designated poverty line?

Nevada now has a record 13.2 percent official unemployment rate. The state's unemployment trust fund will run out of money in October.

Sen. Raggio's answer? Spend, spend, spend; then borrow more money from the federal government, asking to be fitted with a shiny new slave collar, and paying the loans back by socking the state's few remaining employers with extra taxes.

After all, no business ever goes bankrupt, federal funds are inexhaustible, cigarettes grow on trees, and we all live above the Big Rock Candy Mountain in Cloud Cuckoo-land. It's not as though the federal government gets its money from everyday "Joe and Jane Taxpayers," including those in Nevada.

Oh, wait ...