(Chuck Muth) – Can Nevada voters be “bought”?

Harry Reid obviously believes so. He thinks Nevadans are just like his colleagues, Sen. Ben Nelson and Sen. Mary Landrieu, whose votes for ObamaCare he “bought” with taxpayer goodies and pork. The legal bribes were so blatant they earned their own official names: The Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase.

Hot off that success, and obviously believing everybody has a price, Harry Reid is now bringing his Washington pork-barrel rainmaking machine to the Nevada desert. Here’s just the latest installment of his pay-for-votes operation, as reported on Wednesday in the Lahontan Valley News:

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has announced a series of federal grants including funding for public transit improvements in Carson City and Churchill County.

The $2.1 million grant to the Nevada Department of Transportation will help pay for improvements for Carson City maintenance and bus stops. Churchill County will receive two paratransit vehicles for services near Fallon.

There will also be funding in that grant for alternative fuel vehicles for the Tahoe Basin.

In addition, Reid announced $1.2 million in federal funding to enhance broadband access in Nevada’s schools. The money will be used to make major improvements to NevadaNet, the high-speed system which provides Internet connectivity to remote areas, rural centers and the state’s Indian tribes among others.

These sorts of “grants” and announcements have been popping up all over Nevada since the first of the year. Harry Reid hopes all this “free” money pouring into the state will blind Nevadans to the reality that….

(a) Harry has been AWOL from Nevada and our interests ever since he became the top dog of Senate Democrats, and

(b) Thanks in large part to his misguided efforts to “buy” the nation out of the Great Recession with government-funded bailouts and stimulus schemes, not only is the nation on the verge of a double-dip recession, but Nevada is actually getting the worst of it since its economy relies almost entirely on the health of the national economy.

The notion that the Great Recession would have been worse if not for Reid’s stimulus program is pure bunk. That stimulus money has been used almost entirely to bail out government programs and government employees and liberal special interests (but I repeat myself).

Without “spendulus,” government would have been forced to shed employees and non-essential programs two years ago, just like the private sector did.

Without “spendulus” – which only put off the day of reckoning for states who have irresponsibly overspent their budgets during the times of plenty – state and local governments would be leaner and more productive in much the way so many private businesses have already returned to profitability because they made fast, difficult but necessary cuts and changes immediately.

Consider this little blurb from a recent Washington Post story: “Corporate profits are soaring. Companies are sitting on billions of dollars of cash. And still, they’ve yet to amp up hiring or make major investments.”

Why not?

Because, as columnist John Stossel points out, “when new workers are potential threats because of Labor Department regulations, businesses have little confidence to hire” and “in at least three big areas — health insurance, financial regulation and taxes — no one can know what will happen.”

In addition, Stossel notes, “Deficit spending must be covered by government borrowing, which takes capital that could be used for investment out of the private sector.”

Or as Michael Fleischer, president of Bogen Communications Inc., recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal: “As much as I might want to hire new salespeople, engineers and marketing staff in an effort to grow, I would be increasing my company’s vulnerability to government.”

This fear and uncertainty in the business and entrepreneur communities is all 100% due to the policies being pursued and enacted by Sen. Harry Reid – and his accomplices, Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.

Harry Reid’s orgy of stimulus spending and new government regulations has actually made things worse. Indeed, a year ago Nevada’s unemployment rate was “only” 12.3 percent. Today, a full year after “spendulus” has been in full effect, Nevada’s unemployment rate is up to 14.3 percent.

If Karl Rove was George Bush’s “architect,” Harry Reid is Barack Obama’s “construction manager.” He’s taken Obama’s plans and built them into legislative reality. So whether he likes it or not, this is now the Reid Recession.

Remember in November.