Gibbons still doesn’t like federal unemployment expansion

Gov. Jim Gibbons said today that he hasn't changed his position on the federal provision of $77 million for unemployed Nevadans on the condition that some statutes be changed.

Gibbons' announcement on Wednesday that he supports the state accepting the funds left some scratching their heads given the harsh words he'd directed at the idea. In an interview today, he said his reservations have not changed, but he is grudgingly willing to take the money.

"I still don't like it," he said. "But there's 4,000-plus people that are out there hurting today that we have to worry about, and those 4,000 people that we can help with this, if it's a short term issue that we can deal with in a state without incurring that long-term liability, then we'll take that and use that money to help those people."

Gibbons said he was relying on legislators' assurances that they would repeal the statutory changes when the money runs out. "Those promises are coming from the legislators in their testimony," he said.

But he said he was still suspicious of the stimulus bill: "If the federal government didn't want us to unwind it, why did they say we could not put a sunset on it? The federal government is up to something in this bill, and I honestly believe that the chains that they have attached to the state of Nevada, the permanent changes that they want us to make, are in opposite to what they're saying publicly."

Unlike the last measure Gibbons said he reluctantly supported, the room tax increase, in the case of the unemployment expansion, he said he would sign the bill that comes out of the Legislature. It could pass as soon as next week.