EDITORIAL: Ask voters? No thanks

The Clark County Commission has entertained a couple of tax increases over the past year despite persistently high unemployment, tens of thousands of underwater mortgages and general taxpayer struggles to recover from the effects of the valley’s economic crash. The commission considered a sales tax hike to boost police operating budgets and a property tax increase to prop up University Medical Center, even as the county resumed handing out pay raises to its employee bargaining groups.

Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak, who has opposed raising taxes, nonetheless was open to the idea of asking voters to weigh in this fall and decide the issues once and for all. The commission has the ability to place advisory questions on the November ballot.

Mr. Sisolak’s colleagues refused to go along this week.

Are they that hostile to voter input? More likely, they know voters won’t support higher taxes for local governments — and some commissioners don’t want to hear it.

Here’s an advisory for the commission: Voters want governments to live within their means — just as they must.