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As goes Nevada, so goes the nation?
As goes Nevada, so goes the nation?
Twenty-seven days before the general election, northern Nevada state Sen. Greg Brower pleaded a case before a roomful of ardent conservatives that sounded suspiciously moderate. "We can't survive without any taxes and regulation," the Washoe County Republican told a women's club at the Nugget Hotel in Sparks. He acknowledged that he considers power-sharing in state government between Democrats and Republicans healthy, and reminded his audience that poverty, not Obamacare, has driven up Nevada's Medicaid costs. When Brower got to education, he sounded like the most liberal man in the room. "We've cut a lot and we need to stop," he said. "We've got to stop the bleeding." The murmurs of agreement that followed some of his statements dwindled to silence.
Such is the fate of a political candidate in a swing county in a swing state, a place so evenly split between Republicans and Democrats that no constituent can demand ideological purity and expect their candidate to win. As of mid-October, Republicans had registered just 1,600 more voters than Democrats had this election season, a less than 1 percent advantage. Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston wrote in August that Washoe's most populous city, Reno, might determine the presidency: "The Biggest Little City could have the biggest impact of any locale in America." Odds-maker Nate Silver of The New York Times' FiveThirtyEight blog gives Nevada an almost 10 percent chance of being the "tipping point" state, whose six electoral votes put the next president over the 270 required to win.
But Nevada matters in less obvious ways as well, and Brower's moderation and Washoe County's newly centrist leanings have some resonance for the nation at large. While politicians in the U.S. House and on the campaign trail flirt with the idea that ever-lower taxes stimulate the economy while higher rates kill jobs, Nevada has been living that grand experiment, serving as a laboratory for the kind of low-revenue governance fashionable among certain conservatives and even some Democrats in this lackadaisical economy. The state has no personal income tax, no franchise tax and low taxes on its dominant industry, gambling. It's one of only three Western states, along with Wyoming and Washington, that doesn't tax corporate income -- and unlike Wyoming, it imposes no severance tax on minerals extracted from the earth.
~snip~
Twenty-seven days before the general election, northern Nevada state Sen. Greg Brower pleaded a case before a roomful of ardent conservatives that sounded suspiciously moderate. "We can't survive without any taxes and regulation," the Washoe County Republican told a women's club at the Nugget Hotel in Sparks. He acknowledged that he considers power-sharing in state government between Democrats and Republicans healthy, and reminded his audience that poverty, not Obamacare, has driven up Nevada's Medicaid costs. When Brower got to education, he sounded like the most liberal man in the room. "We've cut a lot and we need to stop," he said. "We've got to stop the bleeding." The murmurs of agreement that followed some of his statements dwindled to silence.
Such is the fate of a political candidate in a swing county in a swing state, a place so evenly split between Republicans and Democrats that no constituent can demand ideological purity and expect their candidate to win. As of mid-October, Republicans had registered just 1,600 more voters than Democrats had this election season, a less than 1 percent advantage. Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston wrote in August that Washoe's most populous city, Reno, might determine the presidency: "The Biggest Little City could have the biggest impact of any locale in America." Odds-maker Nate Silver of The New York Times' FiveThirtyEight blog gives Nevada an almost 10 percent chance of being the "tipping point" state, whose six electoral votes put the next president over the 270 required to win.
But Nevada matters in less obvious ways as well, and Brower's moderation and Washoe County's newly centrist leanings have some resonance for the nation at large. While politicians in the U.S. House and on the campaign trail flirt with the idea that ever-lower taxes stimulate the economy while higher rates kill jobs, Nevada has been living that grand experiment, serving as a laboratory for the kind of low-revenue governance fashionable among certain conservatives and even some Democrats in this lackadaisical economy. The state has no personal income tax, no franchise tax and low taxes on its dominant industry, gambling. It's one of only three Western states, along with Wyoming and Washington, that doesn't tax corporate income -- and unlike Wyoming, it imposes no severance tax on minerals extracted from the earth.
~snip~
http://www.hcn.org/issues/44.18/as-goes-nevada-so-goes-the-nation
