COMMENTARY: Nevada politicians looking to raise property taxes must be high
I know marijuana is now legal in Nevada. But I didn’t know the politicians were high, too.
Does anyone in Carson City understand how bad things are for the citizens of Nevada? Do they know how bad the past eight years have been?
Do they know that we still lead the nation in underwater homes? Do they know that home values are still 50 percent or more below their high in 2006?
Yet they still want to raise property taxes?
I’d venture a guess that Democrats would call me “rich.” If I’m struggling, then everyone is struggling. And I am struggling. My businesses and careers are all down in revenues. Many of my income streams are 70 percent lower than a decade ago.
In addition to my businesses, I’ve always been a deal-maker and money-raiser. Some might call me a “rainmaker.” Except it no longer rains. Obama’s socialist agenda and policies have turned rainmakers into desert landscape.
The deal-making business is dead. And fundraising for business startups (outside of Silicon Valley high-tech companies run by Stanford MBA whiz kids, most of whom are the children of billionaires) has come to a standstill.
It’s almost impossible to start a new business anymore because of thousands of new regulations passed by Obama.
Legal fees are higher than profits.
Dodd-Frank made it impossible to take a small company public. The entire industry of NASDAQ small-cap stocks has been annihilated.
Obamacare has been a disaster for small businessmen and independent contractors (like me). No one can afford the astronomical rates for health insurance anymore. My rates have quadrupled … and as a bonus, because of high deductibles, all the bills are on me.
The name should be changed from the Affordable Care Act to the Unimaginable Cost Act.
My income taxes are way up — thanks to Obama. And worse, my Obamacare taxes are an extra 3.8 percent on top of that — on every dollar, with no cap.
Add in much higher electric bills because of Obama and Harry Reid’s obsession with green energy.
They should call green energy the Unaffordable Energy Bill.
Finally, there’s my home. It is way below what it was worth in 2006. It is about even with what I paid 15 years ago.
Now Clark County bureaucrats and Nevada legislators think I can afford a property tax increase? Really?
They want to change the rules and remove the cap put in place more than a decade ago.. They clearly — despite any claim to the contrary — want homeowners and taxpayers to pay more. Even though our homes are down in value. Pay more? From where? Do Nevada’s politicians and bureaucrats think money grows on trees?
I’m at the breaking point. I will not pay higher property taxes. I can’t. I have no more left to give. Here are some alternatives.
1) Do more with less. Try cutting spending, like the rest of us.
2) Freeze all government hiring or lay off government employees.
3) Allow a lottery in Nevada. Why are we giving all that free money from Nevada citizens to California?
4) Investigate what the federal government will pay Nevada for the right to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Our politicians are ignorant and irresponsible not to at least explore what we could get for Yucca.
5) Why not raise Nevada’s casino tax from the lowest-in-the-nation of 6.75 percent to, say, 10 percent? I’m not for raising anyone’s taxes. But in return, we could agree to freeze it there forever.
I know this much: I can’t pay another dollar in property taxes. Look elsewhere. The people are in trouble. The people are tapped out. The people are angry.
And soon, you’re going to have a full–scale mutiny on your hands.
A word to the wise: Back off before the people revolt. And one other thing. Please lay off the marijuana.
Wayne Allyn Root (Wayne@ROOTforAmerica.com) is a best-selling author and host of “WAR Now: The Wayne Allyn Root Show” from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. daily at 790 Talk Now. His R-J column runs Thursday and Sunday.