LETTERS: Fiscal conservatives have no idea what they’re talking about

After reading Diana Orrock's commentary, I would be remiss if I didn't point out some of the errors she made in her zeal to prove she is a true conservative ("Assembly Republicans missed huge opportunity," July 14 Review-Journal).

She states that the Education Savings Accounts bill left out children who are already enrolled in private schools. The ESA wasn't "bungled," as she states. The ESA law is designed to give parents of children in public schools that are not providing an adequate education the opportunity and the funding to take their children to a better school. The funding the state provides is more than adequate to enroll them in faith-based schools. When the ESA is combined with the Opportunity Scholarship that the Legislature also passed, low-income parents will be able to afford most private schools.

Ms. Orrock correctly states that the "commerce tax" is a gross receipts tax. That tax is only paid by businesses that gross more than $4 million a year. That leaves out most, if not all small businesses. She then says that even businesses that are not profitable will have to pay this tax. I submit that if a business that grosses more than $4 million a year is not profitable, the business is being mismanaged.

She asserts that businesses don't pay taxes, but rather pass them on to the customer in the price of their product. That isn't true for a gross receipts tax, because if a business raises the price of its product, its "gross receipts" go up and it pays more taxes. The commerce tax will, for those required to pay it, force businesses to find ways to keep their costs down without raising prices or cut their profit margin.

I'd like to remind everyone that the 2011 and 2013 Legislatures cut the pay of state employees, so when Ms. Orrock states that state employees weren't affected, she's flat wrong. Just imagine what the wait times would be at the Department of Motor Vehicles if the state had laid off some of those employees. What would have happened to class sizes if the state forced the Clark County School District to lay off teachers or prevented them from hiring more?

Ms. Orrock's statement that our state controller and state treasurer put forward ideas for how to fund the state is true. What she isn't telling you is that the budget they proposed was short a significant amount of funding. Two other proposals contained some noteworthy ideas. What did all of these proposals have in common? None of them were ever submitted as a bill to be considered by legislative committees.

Like most outspoken conservatives, Ms. Orrock is wearing political blinders. She's afraid that someone with different ideas might be right and she'd have to swallow her pride. What's missing from today's political scene? It's called compromise, Ms. Orrock.

Art Gisi

Las Vegas

Lousy sports town

This is why Las Vegas is a terrible sports town.

I moved here 10 years ago from the Phoenix area. Back in the early 1970s, the Fiesta Bowl was born and, although at the time it was a small player in the bowl world, local citizens and local media made it a huge event locally, welcoming fans and teams with open arms and tremendous coverage. It's now one of the biggest games in the country. When I moved here, I was astounded at the lack of local support for the Las Vegas Bowl. It barely got a few paragraphs on page 3 and very little TV coverage.

Now Phoenix is one of the country's few four-sport cities. Yet Phoenix Arena Football League team still commands front-page coverage and is hugely successful. Here, the largest article of the year was about how the Arena Football League is taking over operations of the Las Vegas Outlaws. Last week, there was not even a paragraph in the newspaper and hardly a mention on TV of the Outlaws game. It's no wonder the Outlaws and previous incarnations failed. A poker tournament gets more coverage. The Outlaws are highly trained athletes and certainly deserve front-page coverage.

It's time the local media and residents come to grips with the fact that Las Vegas is growing into a large metropolitan city, not a suburb of Los Angeles that only concerns itself with the Lakers and Dodgers. Good luck to any future National Hockey League team. At least when the Kings or Ducks come to Las Vegas to play, the media will notice.

Steve Mitchell

Las Vegas