Letter to the editor for Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2014

Nevadans are a government-owned ATM

Buried near the bottom of “Power struggle over tax and revenue system lurking ahead of 2015 Legislature” in the Appeal on Nov. 15 was the Nevada Department of Taxation’s lament that various tax exemptions are “costing” the government $3.77 billion in revenue.

Translation: Gov. Sandoval, Republicans-in-name-only, and Democrats are alarmed you’re keeping too much of what you earn.

You are a government-owned ATM machine in service to your political masters, not the other way around.

The newly reinforced Republican conservative caucus seems to be regarded as an alien threat to Sandoval’s plan to “restructure Nevada’s tax and revenue system” which has long ago exceeded the size needed to fund necessary government functions.

Fiscal hawks want to cut back the tax-hungry black hole that’s pulling down Nevada’s Obamanomics-whipped economy.

Publicly funded vanity projects and payoffs to campaign contributors and political cronies are robbing the free market capital needed to rebuild the private sector, where real people live and work.

UNR political scientist Eric Herzik claims the new legislative majority somehow owes its victory to Gov. Sandoval. On the contrary, Sandoval used his top-of-the-ticket status to vacuum up big money campaign loot and spent it all on his own uncompetitive “race,” with some crumbs tossed to his pals. Sandoval did not campaign or raise cash for any underfunded down ticket Republicans that I’m aware of.

The new conservative caucus was elected — on its own — to restore control of the government to the taxpayers.

Lynn Muzzy

Minden