Weekly Editorial Recap

THURSDAY

HARRY's CLOUT

Sen. Harry Reid's campaign team has one card to play in defense of the unpopular incumbent: the majority leader's power in Washington, which supposedly results in otherwise unattainable financial benefits for Nevada.

But the more Sen. Reid's staff plays that card, the more absurd their argument becomes. Nevada's economy is getting weaker. Unemployment is rising. Businesses aren't hiring.

So the Reid camp is reduced to making the unquantifiable assertion that Nevada's lousy economy would be far worse if not for the senator's debt-funded largess.

The Reid campaign's Jon Summers gleefully blasted an e-mail last week to journalists everywhere touting comments from University of Nevada, Reno economics chair Elliott Parker. "Without federal aid, we could be talking Great Depression levels of unemployment in Nevada," he told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

That's quite a claim, considering the primary purpose of the failed "stimulus" giveaway was to preserve the salaries and benefits of state government workers -- "saving" between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs.

Of course, Mr. Summers' e-mail blast failed to include another quote from Mr. Parker in that Gazette-Journal story:

"Government intervention can slow down the economic fall, but it can't really turn it around and make it grow unless you do massive World War II-level spending, and we're not willing to spend that much," Mr. Parker said.

Thank heavens. But spending is all Sen. Reid knows. Instead of seeking tax cuts and reducing spending, he's raising taxes and growing government to unsustainable levels.

Nevada needs tourists to create jobs. Tourists can't come here if they don't have jobs that provide them with discretionary income. Sen. Reid wants to take that discretionary income from Americans and transfer it to his liberal constituencies.

And Sen. Reid's campaign would have us believe we can't do without his power in Washington? The real question is: How much more can we take?