Another committee to study taxes

The problem with taxing wealth is that tax revenues tend to drop -- or at least grow more slowly -- when times are tough. If members of the taxpaying peasantry get laid off or are cut back to part-time wages, they're going to reduce their spending across the board. No matter what your strategy for diverting part of those revenue streams, tax revenues are going to falter, just as a hungry cow gives less milk.

Given Nevada's sunny climate and clear air, this long ago became obvious to everyone except the residents of a single community mysteriously swaddled in a dark and disorienting mist -- that being the home of the state Legislature, Carson City.

Several times in the past 20 years, lawmakers have hired different outfits to study the imaginary problem of the state's "unstable" tax structure, seeking a way to properly "stabilize" revenues so they won't fall during economic downturns. Like Don Quixotes seeking the Golden Helmet of Adonza, the lawmakers keep paying people to devise the perfect tax stream.

A 1989 Price Waterhouse study recommended a 3 percent business profits tax, as well as collecting sales taxes on services such as dry cleaning and auto repairs. A 2001 Governor's Task Force on Taxation recommended a 0.25 percent gross receipts tax (that'd be "just right"!) and myriad other levies, including a tax on going to the movies.

Lawmakers rejected most of these specific schemes -- all attempted end runs around the constitutional ban on personal income taxes, when you come right down to it -- but managed to levy a billion dollars in new taxes in 2003 and again in 2009, anyway.

Now, lame duck Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio is back, proposing a new "citizens committee" of "stakeholders" to propose changes in taxes and state spending to "improve the quality of life in Nevada."

But this "stakeholder group cannot be lopsided," Sen. Raggio warns. "It has to be balanced. It cannot be tilted in favor of those who receive taxes, rather than those who pay the taxes."

Oh, please. What are the chances Sen. Raggio and his lawmaking peers are going to tolerate a "citizens committee" dominated by net taxpayers who might conclude the best way to "improve the quality of life in Nevada" is to eliminate all new taxes and state "services" introduced since 1990?

"Why in the name of heaven would you do it to yourself again?" asked conservative Las Vegan Knight Allen at a recent public hearing on the scheme. "If you don't learn from history, you are doomed to repeat it. You have the best tax system in the country."

Actually, compared to the way other big-spending states have been plunging into red ink of late -- especially those dependent on state personal income taxes -- Mr. Allen is correct.

But just like the endless search for baldness cures, miracle diets and magical potions to increase the size and attractiveness of our sexual equipment, the endless pursuit of the "perfectly stable tax structure" -- double-talk for tax hikes -- will continue.

When the high taxes levied on tourists are counted in the mix, Nevada now ranks right in the middle, 25th out of 50 states, in overall state and local tax burden. When you consider per capita revenue, the state ranks near the top.

Haven't scared enough tourists away, yet? Keep at it, lawmakers. Surely you'll find the perfect mix.

Meantime, can we interest you in our new process for turning lead to gold? Our unbeatable blackjack system? Can we sell you this treasure map that we got from a dying prospector who actually found the Golden City of Cibola?

Wait, wait, your uncle Smith B. Andreas has died in Nigeria, leaving $33 million in an unclaimed bank account, and we're looking for a trustworthy American who's willing to aid in the transfer ...