Tax secrets

Where there should be open debate, there are closed-door meetings. Where there should be public testimony from a wide range of interests, there is deliberate exclusion. Where there should be complaints about secrecy, there are shoulder shrugs and a weary acceptance of the status quo.

It's business as usual in Carson City. Although the Legislature has held dozens of public hearings on the general fund over the past three months, lawmakers have retreated to the shadows to determine how to pay for it all.

The economy won't generate enough taxes to fund education, public safety and health care to the degree that lawmakers and bureaucracies insist is necessary -- so says the Economic Forum, the nonpartisan panel that provides binding revenue projections to the Legislature. The gap between what legislators want to spend and what they'll actually have available to spend could top $1 billion.

So lawmakers must raise taxes to balance the 2009-11 budget they intend to pass. And with less than three weeks remaining in this year's regular session, the only significant increase that has been settled is the voter-approved hotel room tax hike.

Beyond that, the capital has no specific tax plan drafted for a thorough public vetting -- only mountains of speculation. The best intelligence seems to point to boosts in the sales tax, the modified business tax, liquor and cigarette taxes and extending the sales tax to some services, such as landscape maintenance and vehicle and home repairs. Additionally, the mining industry and local and county governments are in the cross hairs of revenue grabbers.

But it's all conjecture at this point. The only people who can provide any confirmation, the Legislature's so-called "core group," aren't talking.

Nevada's open meeting law was created to ensure the public's business is conducted in public. That no binding votes are taking place in these meetings is irrelevant, as is the fact that lawmakers can exempt themselves from the statute. Their actions represent a clear violation of the spirit of this vital law.

The intention is obvious: Lawmakers know any proposed tax increases will inspire a loud and organized opposition. Keeping the increases secret until the last moment possible will help blunt that opposition.

The movement against tax increases isn't merely anchored in ideology -- it's a product of economic reality, of businesses barely hanging on, of workers worried about layoffs, of household budgets too strapped to absorb higher costs.

Now more than ever, Nevada can't afford higher taxes.