Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of Nevada News & Views
(Chuck Muth) – Gov. Brian Sandoval called the Nevada Legislature into a special session last week to approve a deal to bribe Faraday Motors – manufacturer of a non-existent electric car and quite possibly the next “Solyndra” – to the Apex Industrial Park way north of North Las Vegas which about a year ago wasn’t even suitable for marijuana growers when the city tried to lure that industry to the park.
Sadly, a number of conservative legislators voted for the deal. Their argument was that the bill Sandoval originally introduced was a lot worse and they successfully made it better. However, putting ketchup on a crap burger doesn’t change the fact that it’s a crap burger.
In the end, four legislators stood up to the powers-that-be and voted to protect Nevada’s taxpayers by voting “no” on the Faraday Farce: Assemblywoman Shelly Shelton, Assemblywoman Robin Titus, Assemblyman Brent Jones and Assemblyman Ira Hansen.
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Adding insult to injury, legislators supported giving these tax breaks to newcomers such as Tesla and Faraday, but went out of their way to make sure that Nevada’s two largest and oldest industries, gaming and mining, were specifically banned from qualifying for similar incentives.
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While everyone was having a cow this past week trying to find out who exactly bought and now owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal, legislators exhibited a noticeable lack of curiosity over who exactly owns Faraday Motors. Although detailed ownership information is required in Nevada to get a gaming, liquor or medical marijuana license, qualifying for hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars doesn’t necessitate similar disclosure. Go figure.
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RINO Assembly Majority Leader Paul Anderson said factors other than the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax relief lured Faraday here, specifically citing in a Wall Street Journal story “education.”
Pure flapdoodle. Nevada’s public education system continues to be one of the WORST in the nation. And all the millions in extra money for education approved by the Legislature back in June certainly hasn’t made it fully into the system, let alone made any difference.
So Faraday, and Tesla before it, came to Nevada purely for tax reasons. The condition of our public “failure factory” schools didn’t factor into the decision in the least. They couldn’t have cared less.
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Constitutional conservative Assemblywoman Shelly Shelton outlined the constitutional arguments against the Faraday Farce and Taxpayer Giveaway in an exchange with the governor’s chief-of-staff, Mike Willden.
Willden couldn’t counter Shelton’s argument…and didn’t even try. He simply said, essentially, the Constitution means whatever the hell the people in power, not the people of Nevada, say it means.
Bravo to Shelton for outlining the reasons that EVERY conservative in the Nevada Assembly should have voted against this “corporate welfare” scheme.
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By the way, Mr. Willden is the same guy who told me and a pair of business owners in Henderson that he and the governor were prepared to do “everything in our power” to block the voters of Nevada from voting to repeal the $1.4 billion tax hike they shoved down our throats earlier this year.
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Also by the way, Assemblywoman Shelton planned to offer an amendment to the Faraday Farce bill that would have provided some measure of tax relief to ALL Nevada businesses that create new jobs. And I’m told she was assured her amendment would be considered.
But on the floor during the session, Assemblyman Derek Armstrong-Anderson, chairing the circus and carrying the governor’s water once again, refused to allow it to be introduced.
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Tax-hiking Republican Assemblyman Erv Nelson tweeted after the deed was done: “Thanks, Governor, and your administration for leading out on economic development and diversification.”
While at the same time flipping the bird to every other existing Nevada business and industry – other than Tesla, of course – which instead of getting such a sweetheart deal, got nailed with huge tax HIKES earlier this year.
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In a Wall Street Journal story on passage of the Faraday Farce, the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance said it was “a huge win for Southern Nevada.”
LVGEA lobbied HARD for this bill. However, LVGEA receives SUBSTANTIAL tax money to support its organization; tax money that might dry up if they ever p*ss the governor off.
As such, the organization was conflicted up the wazoo and nothing they said about this deal should have been taken at face value. Indeed, they were nothing more than a paid propagandist for the governor in the matter.
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Assemblyman Pat “The Appeaser” Hickey admitted in a blog post that the Faraday deal is a risk but suggested that “Nevada, after all, is a state founded on risk.”
Indeed, the modern-day Las Vegas Strip was launched on a huge gamble with the Mirage by Steve Wynn.
But here’s the difference: Hickey is taking a risk using OUR money. Tax dollars. If the Faraday deal goes belly-up, you and I will be stuck holding the bag, not Hickey.
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Megan Messerly of the Las Vegas Sun tweeted Friday night that the Faraday Motors “workforce development bill, AB-1, passes the Senate unanimously, 17-1, with (Sen. Don) Gustavson against.”
17-1 is “unanimous”? Isn’t that sort of like sliding into second with a stand-up double?
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Let’s give a little credit where credit is due in the Faraday Farce…
After the deal was approved, Republicans in the state Senate stunned their Democrat colleagues by introducing a non-binding resolution that clarified for the Nevada courts that the intent of the Legislature in passing the Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) in the last session was to exempt children under 7 and the children of military families from the 100-day penalty requirement that kids be enrolled in a public school before qualifying for the voucher money.
The resolution was approved unanimously in the Senate and along party lines in the Assembly.
Of course, what Republicans SHOULD have done was force Sandoval to include the ESA problem on the special session agenda so it could be fixed to eliminate the discriminatory requirement for ALL homeschool and private school children, but this resolution was at least a small start in the right direction.
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