Taxing report

The campaign to send Nevada's taxes higher than the Stratosphere Tower took its next predictable step Tuesday when a study group, appointed by state lawmakers to cry for new piles of government spending money, issued draft recommendations calling for -- you guessed it -- massive tax increases.

The Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group, a 20-member panel stacked with public employees, union representatives and other government cheerleaders, will meet Friday at the Sawyer Building at 9 a.m. to discuss the preliminary report. It's as disconnected an assemblage of progressive platitudes as we've seen in years.

Among its suggestions:

-- Remove the "constitutional barriers" to tax increases.

-- Diversify the state's tax structure to "stabilize" revenues.

-- Build a high-speed train between Las Vegas and Reno.

-- Provide "competitive compensation for public servants and educators."

-- Get our congressional delegation to dole out more federal pork.

-- Plow significantly more money into universities, schools, police departments, welfare and public health programs.

-- Put more kids in preschool.

-- Get more Nevadans to exercise and use public transportation.

You paid $250,000 for these rehashed arguments that are made every two years in Carson City.

For starters, good luck convincing voters to repeal the constitutional amendments that prohibit an income tax and require a two-thirds vote in both houses of the Legislature for any tax hike. Ain't gonna happen. Ever.

Second, there is no tax structure -- no constitutional one, anyway -- that can guarantee consistent growth in government revenues when the bottom falls out of the private sector. Even if Nevada had a personal income tax and a corporate income tax, tax collections would have plummeted in this recession, as they have in California, New Jersey and other states with far more diverse economies and far more diverse tax structures than Nevada. Unrestrained government spending is what drives state budget deficits, not deficiencies in taxation.

Further, the implication that our quality of life depends on the ability of the state government to spend whatever it pleases is offensive. Higher taxes and never-ending government growth don't improve the quality of life for productive citizens, they ultimately erode it.

In fact, one of the greatest threats to the Nevada economy and our government's ability to provide constitutionally mandated services is out-of-control growth in public-sector personnel costs. Cities, counties and the state can't possibly begin to provide all the services the study group values without reining in the lucrative contracts government workers here enjoy.

That the group ignored this crisis -- taxpayers already are on the hook for billions of dollars in unfunded public-sector retirement benefits -- makes a mockery of its work.

If the Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group is serious about improving our quality of life, it should dissolve itself.