How Republicans Avoid Substantive Discussion of the Real Choices This Election

The fact is, Republicans are going to win a lot of seats in the House and Senate this year.  November 2 will not be an easy day for Democrats.  However, the day after election day might be.  The reason for this is that all the electioneering will be done, and the business of governing this madcap society will begin.  Governing is the opposite of running for election.  It means making hard decisions as to what is in the best interest of the state, country, county, or whomever elected one to that position.  I heard a discussion with three Democrats running for State Senate on NPR this morning that was focused on governance (the Republicans opted not to participate, despite being invited).  The host of the show did a pretty good job of representing Republican viewpoints in the absence of actual Republicans.  It was a balanced discussion, but one in which the options before the state of Nevada became clear: with a budget deficit looming of between 1/4 and 1/2 of the entire state budget for the next two years ($1.5 billion to $3 billion), the options are either to cut back spending or raise revenue or do both.  The state's options for raising revenue are limited by political and economic reality, but none of the candidates went on record as being in favor of higher taxes.  Instead, they talked about the need to find efficiencies, combine departments, and study the issue to really get a handle on what the numbers will be.  All of this sounded pretty fair and reasonable, but the candidates wouldn't come out and say they will raise taxes.  The Republicans by their absence indicate that they are okay with letting the Democrats make all the tough decisions while they sit back and carp and complain that taxes are too high.  The fact is, taxes are too low right now to fund the state's basic governmental services, like education.  Education makes up most of the state's budget, and personnel make up the bulk of the education budget.  So in other words, Democrats don't want to say they will raise taxes, but they do believe in funding public education, unlike the Republicans.  The Republicans would want us to believe that they can solve our budget problems by cutting back, but the magic bullet would be lower teacher pay, lower state employee pay, perhaps even shutting down UNLV.  I don't mean to be alarmist, but if 1/4 to 1/2 of your total state budget is missing, you will have to make some pretty severe cuts to make it work without additional revenue.