PLAN's report details the fundamental unfairness of the existing tax system to poor and working families, while showing how state government could build revenues to support schools and essential services.

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About this report

Nevada is at a crossroads. Faced with a growing budget deficit, the state can build a solid foundation to support a more diverse economy that can thrive for the rest of the 21st Century or it can continue to trot out its one-trick pony of gambling- based tourism. The goals are clear. Nevada’s working families must have safer communities, more sound transportation systems and infrastructure, affordable health care and housing, better education, more economic opportunities and equal opportunity to live the American Dream. Nevada does not currently provide these things. It does not even come close.

Courageous and comprehensive changes must be made immediately before Nevada’s revenue crisis plunges the state into even more economic peril. The state cannot continue its reliance on income sources that are based on happenstance and fate. Such boom-and-bust cycles cripple progress, place the education of the state’s children even more at risk and shred even further Nevada’s few safety nets. A successful economy needs a diverse, well-educated workforce; it needs a modern transportation and communication infrastructure and it needs stability. Cutting spending is rarely an adequate answer.

The measure of a decent society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. Nevada treats them shamefully, overtaxing and under-servicing them. It has historically ranked at or near the bottom when it comes to funding education and providing social services. Recent figures confirm it continues to dwell at the bottom in literacy rates, school graduation rates and immunization rates, among other areas. In many indicators, it is the only non-Southern state to rate so low. Further cuts in education, human services, and public safety will only harm Nevada’s citizens more.

An equitable and reliable tax system is not only desirable; it is an absolute necessity.