Sinking the session for a lousy $33 million

As hills to die for go, the governor’s threat to veto the state’s general fund budget doesn’t even qualify as a molehill.

In fact, it was just another laughable event in a legislative session where very real education and transportation needs could be scuttled over what the state’s chief executive obviously considers the state’s most pressing concerns: a homeland security center in Carson City and the preservation of a minuscule tax break for business.

When you add up the cost of the four things Gibbons wants included in the $7 billion, 2007-09 budget — maintaining the current business tax rate, $15 million for his empowerment school plan, a National Guard plan for high school dropouts and a homeland security program in the capital — it comes to a paltry $33.3 million.

That’s hardly sticking to his guns, given that in his original spending plan he sought to reduce the payroll tax a hundredth of a percentage point and spend $60 million on empowerment schools, which he said were needed to change education with a “single, bold stroke.”

The Republican considers his veto threat to be “modest” because he’s not drawing a line in the sand over something with a larger price tag. He’s not saying, for example, that he’ll veto a budget that doesn’t include a good chunk of dough for Interstate 15 improvements. And he’s not declaring himself to be anything other than the automaton we saw on the campaign trail last year.

So Gibbons grasps his “no tax” life preserver as the state’s ship goes down in front of him. What a captain.

Gibbons must believe the best way to boost his 30 percent approval rating is with this hodgepodge of tiny policy steps. None of them actually accomplishes anything, with the exception of keeping the payroll tax at 0.63 percent. If no action is taken, the tax will revert to 0.65 percent, resulting in a whopping $16 million for the state’s treasury.

“I will not accept a tax increase,” Gibbons said during a media briefing last week. “This governor made a promise that I would not raise taxes on the people of the state of Nevada, and I plan to keep that promise.”

It would be one thing for Gibbons to use his bully pulpit and veto pen to hold the line on taxes. It’s doubtful that if Gibbons had made such a statement earlier in the session, lawmakers would have balked at the meager $16 million difference.

But he made his veto pronouncement with less than two weeks remaining until the Legislature’s June 4 adjournment. And lawmakers have already closed individual budgets impacted by that tax rate and revenue projection.

So as legislators struggle to compromise on a K-12 education budget (which, thanks to a Gibbons-driven, voter-approved constitutional amendment, must be passed first), re-opening the other budgets to accommodate the tax break and his two pet projects is ludicrous.

Gibbons also wants lawmakers to include $1.7 million to allow high school dropouts to earn their GEDs and enlist in the National Guard, after which they’ll undoubtedly be shipped to Iraq. He also wants $651,000 for an anti-terror hub in the state capital, duplicating fusion centers in Las Vegas and Reno.

Veto threats are an important message to the legislative branch — when they’re not received with outright derision from both sides of the aisle.

Kenny Guinn, Gibbons’ predecessor in the governor’s mansion, learned that the hard way. In 2003, he sat idly as lawmakers played around with his tax plan, ultimately resulting in an impasse that forced two special sessions.

In 2005, Guinn declared he would veto any budget that did not include his $300 million vehicle registration rebate. That $300 million was worth the political capital of a threatened veto.

Gibbons’ $33 million demand is hardly justification for sinking the entire $7 billion spending plan and necessitating a special session.

As I write this, lawmakers still have no compromise on the K-12 budget, in no small part because of the competing proposals for empowerment schools and expanded full-day kindergarten.

It’s usually a fight between the two political parties or legislative houses that grinds a legislative session to a halt. This year, the governor could be to blame.

It’s a good thing Gibbons likes Carson City so much. It looks like he’ll be hunkered down in the governor’s mansion for a bit longer.

Now if only he’d vetoed his wife’s prohibition on booze in the house.

Erin Neff’s column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at (702) 387-2906, or by e-mail.