(Todd Taxpayer Bailey) – The Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group is a mysterious, secretive, somewhat lost group of individuals who have been charged with creating an academic excuse to create new taxes, and raise current taxes, in Nevada. A difficult job, even for a group this smart.
The exact origins of the Vision Stakeholders Group is somewhat murky, and the only early evidence is series of unrelated facts, that I am not qualified to follow-up on, a professional reporter will have to do the work. The Brookings Institute, a powerful Nevada media company, Harry Reid, and the Obama Administration are just puzzle peices yet to be assembled. Somehow, they are all tied to this group of superior minds that will craft a future for all of us.
Enter Democrat State Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford (Las Vegas), who crafted SCR-37, creating the Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group, and the legal madate to create the taxing mechanism that is to be operational on July 1, 2011, with whatever great ideas the stakeholders group comes up with. Initially some Republicans did support the concept of “studying the problem”, however, once it was discovered what the true agenda was, even they backed away.
The funding of $250,000 was passed on a party line vote, and after the Governor’s VETO, the money was provided by Catherine Cortez-Masteo and Ross Miller from their positions on the Nevada Board of Examiners, over the Governor’s objections. The Nevada Taxpayer was NEVER even consulted, like always.
Read SCR-37 by downloading the PDF here:
http://leg.state.nv.us/75th2009/Bills/SCR/SCR37.pdf
The membership of the Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group is stacked against the taxpayer, with people who DIRECTLY benefit from taxation in Nevada, 76% of the group. With all the discussion by so many on reduced budgets and staff levels, how did so many public employees find time to be members of the Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group? Who’s doing the work back at the office?
None of these people pay the Payroll Tax, Nevada’s hidden back door income tax, or most of the other taxes that were raised in the 2009 Legislature. The Chairman, Robert Lang, just moved to Nevada from Washington D.C. to teach Sociology at UNLV but, instead of going to the classroom, he went to the Nevada Vision Stakeholders Group. How does one man get so much power, after living here such a short time, without any local credentials? Steven Horsford knows.
Robert E. Lang, Ph.D., Brookings Mountain West and Department of Sociology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (nonvoting), Chair
Peter C. Bernhard, Cleveland Clinic Nevada René Cantú, Jr., Ph.D., Nevada State College and Latin Chamber of Commerce
Douglas D. Dirks, Employers Holdings, Inc.
Paul Dugan, Washoe County School District, retired
Alan Feldman, MGM Mirage, Inc.
Marsha Irvin, Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy
Boyd Martin, Boyd Martin Construction and Associated General Contractors, Las Vegas Chapter
Thomas A. Perrigo, AICP, City of Las Vegas
Robert Lee Potter, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees
Terry J. Reynolds, The Reynolds Company
Susan Rhodes, LASW, National Association of Social Workers, Nevada Chapter
Brian Rippet, Nevada State Education Association
Katy Simon, Washoe County
Keith Smith, Boyd Gaming Corporation Donald D. Snyder
The Smith Center for the Performing Arts
Denise Tanata Ashby, Nevada Institute for Children’s Research and Policy, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Cedric D. Williams, North Las Vegas Fire Department
Sylvia Young, FACHE, Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center
Now this group sits in complete judgement of us all, creating a value system that we must live by, and a tax system by which to fund and enforce the conclusions they come to. When this document arrives at the Nevada Senate, a gleefull audience will be waiting to use it as an excuse to raise current taxes, and create new ones in Nevada. To stop this from happening, there will need to be a majority of strong, mature, real world experienced voices sitting in the Nevada Legislature next year. The choice is that of the Nevada Taxpayer on June 8th, and in November.
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