This report is serious … but are we?

If I had a dollar for every time I’d heard somebody suggest Nevada needs to diversify its economy, I’d have enough cash to build a major-league stadium, a high-tech video poker server farm, a solar energy plant big enough to power the entire West Coast and a high-speed train to Anaheim.

So color me a tiny bit cynical when it comes to each new report that suggests Nevada is on the cusp of some massive breakthrough in technology, business innovation or some whiz-bang new idea that will bring badly needed jobs back to the Silver State.

I’ve been to the Legislature, people. I’ve seen the enemy and it is us.

Not that the latest study doesn’t have some serious brainpower behind it. The Brookings Mountain West (a project of the prestigious Brookings Institution) and SRI International aren’t fly-by-night hucksters looking to make a quick buck off the rubes with fancy charts, full-color pages and big-sounding words. They’re serious people.

The trouble is, we aren’t. Or at least we haven’t been up until this point.

So, when I read that “Nevada stands at a crossroads yet it appears ready to remap its future,” and “focused by challenge, Nevadans seem ready to reach for a new future,” forgive me if I respond by thinking, “No, we aren’t.”

For far too long, Nevadans have become accustomed to accepting the way things are rather than striving to “reach for a new future.” From public ethics to public policy, we shrug our shoulders at the outrageous and shake our heads at the unacceptable, but we fail to demand real change.

In part, it’s because many of us never saw Nevada as home, but rather a way station replete with plenty of jobs and plenty of ways to blow the money made at those jobs. Las Vegas was the geographic equivalent of a rental car: no need to slow down for speed bumps or get the oil changed. When the good times stopped, we’ll turn her in and move someplace else.

Ironically, the recession may have changed that: When you’re stuck in an underwater home or facing the fact that there aren’t jobs elsewhere, you’re forced to stay. But forced to stay and forced to care are two different things.

There are plenty of really good ideas in the “Unify, Regionalize, Diversify” report — including capitalizing on renewable energy, logistics and improving health care — but there’s precious little on forging the agreements that will be necessary to accomplish those goals.

One of the “threats” listed in the report is “underinvestment in higher education and lack of top-tier Carnegie-ranked research university.” One of the “weaknesses” is an underperforming K-12 education system. How do we fix it? Here’s a hint: It’s not by cutting K-12 and university budgets. It takes money that the state doesn’t have, and won’t have under its current philosophical regime.

One of the “strengths,” of the state is its “overall business-friendly environment, including low taxes, relatively low costs, light regulation and ease of business start-up/permitting.”

Can anybody spot the dichotomy in those last two paragraphs?

Yes, the state has changed its economic development bureaucracy, and top leaders are now directly involved. Yes, there’s a lot of potential in Nevada. But I fear the real change that’s needed is a revolution in vision. And until that happens, no matter how many reports are produced, even by the smartest people, the state may as well send an economic development officer to the convenience store in Primm to buy a bunch of lottery tickets.

At least that gives us a little bit of hope, right?

Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist, and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/SteveSebelius or reach him at 387-5276 or SSebelius@reviewjournal.com.