The hyper-leftist organization, the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN), hosted a preemptive rebuttal to Gov. Sandoval’s State of the State address, and delivered by former state Senator Sheila Leslie. In her address, she espoused the usual unthinking canned ideas of the left. The complete speech can be seen below. After that, a bit of commentary.
The vast majority of the “Progressive State of the State” consisted of calls for raising taxes, raising taxes again, gay marriage, and raising taxes even more. She started out by declaring that Nevada was in fact rich, but that an evil “cabal” forced the faceless masses into grinding poverty. With “renewable energy,” such as the corporatist stooges of Amonix, she believed that Nevada ought to be a paradise; of course, the Soviet Union was also supposed to be a workers’ “paradise.”
Her solution? TAX THE RICH!!`!~eleventy!!1!
In particular, she wanted to tax mining, claiming that because Nevada doesn’t tax mining as much as Wyoming or Alaska, miners in Nevada were not “paying their fair share.” Strange how all these Progressives who don’t actually have to pay one cent of that mining tax are insistent that it is those mining companies that have to pay 100% of the tax that aren’t “paying their fair share.” Perhaps raising mining taxes while decreasing other taxes such as sales tax could both reduce the burden on the struggling people of Nevada, while being “revenue neutral,” it is more likely that the Progressives in Nevada would like to just gobble up more money for Leviathan. Perhaps, also, the return of the vast majority of Nevada from the control of the Federal government would actually allow Nevada to prosper, especially with the potential income from fracking… though it is doubtful that the Progressive forces would dare upset poor Gaia.
But she wants to go beyond that, and insist on creating a corporate income tax. The lack of a corporate income tax is one of the major reasons for a company to locate in Nevada. By eliminating this advantage, we would not create prosperity, but hurt chances for recovery by driving off companies to more advantageous shores.
Of course, the response from the left is to say that the money will go to education. They act as if money was the only barrier to an education so wonderful, that companies would gladly slit their pecuniary wrists in order to hire local talent. Alas, the greater the spending on education, the worse the schools have become. Until educational techniques and curricula are improved, no amount of money will solve our public schools ills. When failed techniques such as “whole learning” are used to teach kids to read, no amount of spiffy classrooms or benefits to retired teachers will result in a quality education system.
The boogie-man of the left, the evil “corporates” are blamed for controlling elections and denying the “the people” from being represented, and so Leslie responds by insisting on publicly funded elections… where the evil “corporates” would be silenced and the Progressive agents of tyranny and mutation would be allowed to run unhampered in their quest to remake Nevada and the United States. She engages in conspiracy theories by stating that a “cabal” of casinos impoverish the hoi polloi by not having the casinos themselves taxed to oblivion; she believes that they “maximize prophets at the people’s expense.” Leslie is under the delusion that wealth is a zero-sum game, and actually spoke about how she thought that low taxes allow the “rich” to accumulate wealth at the top, and to the expense of the poor. The best response to that fallacy has already been given by Margaret Thatcher, and bears repeating.
To counter this “cabal,” she not only want to tax them into oblivion, but create a “Dependency Class” under the guise of a safety net… probably like the nets used by Thracian gladiators!
One of her biggest applause lines was the call to redefine the institution of marriage under the assumption that a person’s natural born sex is irrelevant. She claims that we should do this to produce revenue by attracting same-sex couples who want the recognition of the state in their attempt to pretend to be “husband & wife.” If she wants to attract people to Nevada, by breaking down an unfair law, why not remove the restrictions on alcohol for adults under the age of 21? Turning Nevada into a Mecca for 18 to 20 year olds to legally enjoy tasty beverages would more than pay for any loss in Federal funds.
The most damning thing she said, was the praise she gave Nevada Republicans for becoming more Progressive. For shame Nevada Republicans, for shame.
Thankfully, Leslie lost her race for state Senate by less than 200 votes; she can no longer plague Nevada directly in the legislature.
