(Chuck Muth) – The IFC Subcommittee to Conduct a Review of Nevada’s Revenue Structure on the Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group approved on Thursday a list of 19 individuals to serve on the committee that everyone knows has been assembled for the sole purpose of recommending higher taxes.

That’s the bad news.

The worse news is that only one person spoke up at the meeting on Thursday to object to this stacked deck.

The good news, however is that it was Geoff Lawrence of the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

“It is apparent to everyone here that no stakeholder group can accurately reflect the interests of all Nevadans,” Lawrence told the subcommittee in a prepared statement. “As such, this stakeholder group will merely be a collection of cherry-picked special interests.

“The group includes no explicit taxpayer advocate. It includes no explicit small-business advocate. It is composed primarily of public employees, union representatives and other recipients of state funds as well as large gaming and mining interests.

“The recommendations that are likely to come out of this group are highly predictable. Those members who are dependent on tax dollars for their livelihood will vote to further enrich themselves, while representatives from the gaming and mining industries will ensure that someone else bears the higher tax burden.

“Regular Nevadans have no voice and no protection from this group. The only voice that regular Nevadans have in the policymaking process is the vote that they cast for state legislators. However, when elected officials defer their policymaking powers to an unelected and unaccountable group of ivory-tower elites, they have effectively disenfranchised the majority of individuals.”

The subcommittee then proceeded to disenfranchise the vast majority of Nevada citizens by approving the recommendation.

Amazingly, two Republicans – Sen. Dean Rhoads and Assemblyman Pete Goicoechea – voted to approve the 19. What in the world were these two smoking?