Guinn's crooked money trail 

Balancing the budget on the backs of families

By George Harris

I could not believe my ears when Kenny Guinn with a straight face announced that he was going to raise taxes 39.2 percent.

That equates to about $540 for every man women and child in the State of Nevada. A family of four will need to earn an addition $2,160 dollars to pay for Guinn’s new taxes.

It doesn’t matter if Guinn creates the new taxes through a gross receipts tax, property tax, the so-called sin taxes or a gasoline tax. All taxes are passed through to the consumer. Do not let anyone tell you different.

The gross receipts tax is the most stupid among Guinn’s proposals because it will cause the most economic damage. Mid-sized companies will cut jobs to save the money needed to pay the tax, or even worse they might leave the state all together. This will create another crisis all together: empty storefronts or buildings, lost revenue and lost jobs.

And that’s not all. Our genius governor has forgot to tell you that he will need to spend $30 million dollars to create a Nevada I.R.S to make sure we all pay these new taxes of his. Gov. Guinn is a very poor administrator.

One only needs to look back at his job performance as Clark County School Superintendent or when he was CEO of Southwest Gas to get a clear picture of his abilities or lack thereof.

Guinn is out for his own interest and the interest of his cronies. Heck, last night I was thinking about how the government finally caught Al Capone the Chicago mobster. FBI accountants audited his books and identified how Capone was laundering his profits, which ultimately landed him in prison.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not comparing Kenny Guinn to Al Capone. To compare the two is a waste of time. Capone is a lightweight compared to Guinn.

The auditing-of-the-books idea or, in this case, the auditing of campaign contribution and expenses forms will tell a story of a guy who is bought and paid for. Looking through the contribution list from Gov. Guinn’s 2002 campaign, it’s easy to see why the people and small businesses of the State of Nevada are being asked to carry the burden of these new taxes. Guinn’s gaming cronies are given a virtual pass, by paying a whole ¼ percent increase bringing their total burden to 6 1/2 percent, while you and I are being asked to foot 39.15 percent of the new taxes. It’s just not fair.

How did this happen? Let’s take a look at the campaign contribution and expenses forms. On August 27, 2002 Kenny Guinn had $272,756.49 dollars on hand. He raised another $2,958,055.98 dollars not including $117,501.81 in in-kind contributions. Then on October 29, 2002 Guinn reported he collected another $87,656.43 dollars. On Guinn’s final report he collected an additional $27,280.96 dollars and $39.10 in in-kind contributions bringing the grand total to $3,463,290.50 dollars.

The contributions that could be identified as gaming (many sub-companies) accounted for more than 45 percent of the money Guinn collected, or a whopping 1.5 million dollars. The remainder came from developers, cab owners, doctors, energy companies, insurance companies, drug companies, cigarette companies and unions. In addition, Gov. Guinn collected 688 contributions under $100 dollars. This means that only .0002752 percent of the State's tax-paying population gave money to Guinn.

The charges that Guinn isn’t a Republican gain unquestionable credibility when you review Guinn’s expenses forms. I believe they shed light on why he and his cronies have spent the last four years destroying the reputations of former Party leaders. Guinn has gutted the strength of the Republican Party and only embraces the party when it is to his benefit. It becomes obvious when you see whom Guinn employs to run his campaign that Guinn’s internal compass leans to the left of the Democrat party.

Take a look. Guinn paid Democrat Strategist Kent Orem $549,900 for expenses related to advertising and Democrat Strategist Billy Vassiliadis $20,000 for expenses related to consultants.

He also paid Republican In Name Only Sig Rogich $105,000 for expenses related to consultants and another $7,499.01 for expenses related to office expenses. Peter Ernaut received $678,994.61 for expenses related to consultants.

Vassiliadis and Orem are responsible for running most of the races against Republicans over the last 10 years. Sig is Sig they don't call him a spin doctor for nothing. Ernaut, he just hit the lottery always in the right place at the right time. Pete’s the smartest of the bunch which makes him the most dangerous. None of these men want the Republican Party to have any power because it cuts into their pocketbooks. Why? Each of these guy’s represent gaming interest statewide. Hell, Ernaut is on the board of Park Place Entertainment. It’s not hard to figure-out why gaming isn’t paying their fair share.

Some other interesting tidbits from the Guinn Expense reports. Guinn paid himself $350,000 dollars for other miscellaneous expenses and he reimbursed himself $12,037.65 dollars for expenses related to travel. (Sure hope taxpayers didn’t pay twice for his travel. Maybe we should take a look at his state travel reimbursements just in case there was a mistake).

Guinn paid staffer Joseph Catania $13,500 dollars and according to voter records, he is not even registered to vote. Guinn paid Patricia Webb $5000 dollars for expenses related to consultants and according to voter records; she has been registered since May of ’92, but has only voted once by “mail in”. Then Guinn Paid a company named Sterling Sahara LLC $34,000 dollars for office expenses. While I’m sure it was for office space, I just thought the name Sterling Sahara LLC stuck out like a sore thumb. I mean who owns this company? Since $34,000 is lot of money, I went to the Secretary of State website and punched in Sterling Sahara LLC under search a corporation. Guess what I found? Sterling Sahara LLC is owned by, you guessed it (2) other companies, Southwest Homes LTD which is owned by Todd Slusher, Roland Strum and Tony Worsley and their partner company called Coronado Bay Investments LLC, which happens to be owned by one Jeffrey Guinn.

I don’t know about you but something smells fishy. This whole exercise was to show that Gov. Guinn is controlled by Gaming Inc. and I think I’ve made my point. I have been chastising Kenny Guinn since his first year in office, as the former Clark County Republican Party Chairman and State Party Finance Chairman. To my current position as State Chairman of the Nevada Republican Liberty Caucus, I became immediately concerned by Guinn’s relationships with the major Democrat strategists and his ties to union bosses. Just weeks after Guinn was elected he began to gut the state party of its leadership. By early spring he was appointing Democrats to key positions in his administration. He went out of his way to try to hurt my reputation among Republicans and for a time it worked.

It's time this party gets off its collective butt and stops this clown. No self-respecting Republican would advocate raising taxes to this level. Kenny Guinn hasn’t looked at cutting anything. He wants to take your hard-earned money and put it into the pockets of state workers whose salaries average $10,000 dollars higher then their private-sector counter parts. Guinn wants to fund every liberal program that comes down the pike. In these tough times Guinn is asking you to pay more, but he won’t even cut funding for a college in Henderson Nevada that’s not even needed. His budget calls for funding the college to tune of $26 million this year.

If you don’t agree with the governor he calls you a coward. Well, Governor, we’re not cowards we are just trying to survive, trying to raise our families and put food on the table.

Your assertion that we need to raise taxes by 39 percent makes you irrelevant to the people of Nevada.

-- George E. Harris