Political Nevada

Our Leaders in Nevada failed us.

Where were Nevada’s State politicians before this state’s financial collapse? The majority of Nevada’s State Senators and State Assembly politicians, both Republican and Democratic, who have been supposedly representing our interests for years were sleeping on the job. The majority of our Nevada Legislators have been in Carson City long enough that they are the people who can be blamed for having steered the State of Nevada into our current financial mess. They could have guided our State away for any financial mishaps, but they failed us.

The main reason for any politicians to be elected is to protect us, the electorate, from social or financial bad times; this is what they failed to do, they failed in their main job.

If there were always good times ahead we wouldn’t need political leaders, we would simply set up a society with general rules and live the same lives that our grandparents and their grandparents lived; but that isn’t the real world.

In the real world events fluctuate up and down, from good to bad, from high to low. Our elected officials failed to protect us because they didn’t have the foresight to plan for the future of Nevada. Instead of creating a financial savings fund to protect this state from any financial downfalls they continually created budgets to spend as much as was brought into this state while times were running high. It isn’t a matter of what was budgetted, everything and anything can be acceptable as long as there is money to support it, but to spend as fast as it is earned is not in the best interest of anyone, whether government or family.

Everyone with any financial sense knew that the rapid growth, the insessant building, the high prices of homes and the “flipping of the properties” (especially in the southern part of our state), would end in a nose-dive. Everyone but these people who were elected to protect our state and the citizens of this state.

Why didn’t they set the budgets for the enevidable! They didn’t prepare for the future because they are incapable of preparing for anything. Now these same people who couldn’t see past their morning-breakfast claim that they are ready to fix our finances. Instead of admitting that they erred in their fiscal responsibility, they are all pointing fingers at the “other guy”. Guess what, they are the “other guy”, and they failed!

Their idea of fixing our state’s financial troubles is to find enough money, from cutbacks, taxes, the Federal Government, etc. to pay all the existing debts until the economy recovers. That means that when the economy is back the same mentality that brought Nevada to this nine hundred million dollar debt will be back; and the cycle will be ready to repeat.

They recently announced that the almost nine hundred million short fall has been solved, until 2011. In other words, they put a bandage on the wound instead of healing it. These politicians will attack each other, blame someone else and continue making the same lack of judgement calls that got us in this financial hole in the first place.

Budgets, whether household or government, should be created with a built-in savings plan. For our state government the savings should not be placed in the Stock Market, where everyday is a gamble, and not in a vault, where the money would loose value, but in a fund that can withstand the fluxuating cycles of the everyday world. Should the state’s legislators be cautious on where the savings account is placed, definitely; it’s our finances with which they are playing. Are there experts that could guide the politicians toward proper planning ? The answer is that there are experts, but that the legislators are too worried about their own egos to listen to anyone who might be smarter than them or who might have different political ideals.