E!!

Yeah, I know what I said, but tomorrow ran a bit long. And right now it’s late and I’m really too tired to wax blogetic.  But I’ll give you a few interesting items to read:

– Gun Owners of Nevada SB-52 alert here. Raggio and Gansert’s contact numbers are conveniently provided.

– A moderate Democrat displeased with the leftward lurch of the Obama White House writes to the Las Vegas Sun here.

– On Friday, Carson City protestors protested about the state budget here.  The state Assembly overrode the governor’s veto so we now have a $6.9m budget and a $781 million tax increase to fund it.  (Gov. Gibbons’ proposed $6.2 billion budget, which legislators rejected, included a $220 million voter-approved room tax increase.) Me, I reject BOTH budgets as more than was needed – and more than Nevada can afford.

– If the facts are as represented, it seems a mistrial and re-trial for an Army Ranger would be in order here.  Personally, I don’t care if he shot the Al Quada operative while he was just sitting on the rock.  Why are we politely escorting known terrorists around anyway…?

– A seemingly worthy non-partisan breast cancer initiative petition is here. It urges Congress to pass legislation to end the practice of so-called “drive-through” mastectomies in which women are forced out of the hospital only hours after invasive breast cancer surgery.  Hours...?

All my blog pages and archived posts are now here at the new blog location.  (Thank you, Andrew!!)

Unfortunately, my sidebar widgets, blogrolls, link lists, and ”In the Media” blurbs did not carry over, so I’ll have to re-build those.

But I think  I can safely blog here now without fear of losing things in cyberspace…so, happily, I’ll start blogging again tomorrow!!

Sincere thanks to all my readers for their patience and support during these very trying weeks.

Yes, yes, I know my old blog is back up:  www.elizabethcrum.blogivists.com

and yes, I know this blog is just sitting here.

I was (and am) hesitant to do any work, in either place, that might get zapped, overwritten, or otherwise messed up – either by cyberpowers beyond my control or during the export/import migration process.  I also ran into a file size issue that I am trying to work around.

Please bear with me; I am not a tech genius by any means.  I will try to get this done by the weekend and hope to be happily blogging again by next week.  I’ll send out an E!! alert when I do, so no need to keep checking back for now.

Unless you are not on my mailing list and then, yes, you should check back.  Tuesday-ish.

Happy Memorial Day.

My blog at www.elizabethcrum.blogivists.com has been down for 4 days.

This is my new blog address and location.

It will take some time to migrate my files and build/re-build.

Not thrilled about this, but,  “oh well.”

Fact:  Democrats control the Nevada State Senate, 12-9.

Fact:  Due to the 2/3 super-majority rule, Nevada Democrats cannot pass a tax increase without the votes of (at least) two Republican senators.

Fact:  No Republican senator would dare to vote for a tax hike without the blessing of Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio (R-Reno).

Conclusion:  Whether or not Nevada’s citizens, businesses and/or tourists get socked with a huge new tax hike in 2009 pretty much depends on Sen. Bill Raggio.

Action Item:  Call, fax, or email Sen. Raggio and respectfully urge him to oppose tax increases in these, the final days of the 2009 legislative session.

Toll-free Phone: 1-800-992-0973  or  1-800-995-9080
Fax: 1-775-786-1177
Email: wraggio@sen.state.nv.us

Action Item 2:  Forward this post to your friends!

Steve Wynn on Jon Ralston’s Face to Face:  “Anybody who raises taxes now is psychotic.”

Apparently there’s a guy working at the Nevada Policy Research Institute who is smarter than the entire Nevada legislature combined.

How so?

He went through the state ledgers line by line and, applying some basic principles and setting a few reasonable priorities, came up with a proposed budget of $5.1 billion.  Which, unlike the budget proposed by the Nevada legislature, stays within our current revenue projections. 

Oh, wait, that’s right:  the state legislature still has not released their budget for public discussion.  Even though they’ve been meeting up in Carson City for months.

Said a legislator who asked not to be named, “I mean, come ON, guys.  This stuff is, like, really hard.”

Says Geoffrey Lawrence, the fiscal expert at NPRI who put the proposed budget together, ”The reason the legislature and governor haven’t been able to balance the budget is that they’ve been unable or unwilling to set priorities.”

Now we wait to hear what the Economic Forum has to say.  We expect they will project lower tax-revenue than previously anticipated.  And that lawmakers will then propose record or near-record tax increases.

If they do, remind them of the four basic principles that provided the basis for NPRI’s budget:  sensible prioritizing, consistent application of government rules and taxes, agency thrift, and “last in, first out” (the elimination of some programs created and funded by Nevada’s record 2003 tax increases – which never should have happened).