Sandoval Slashes Seniors Benefits

Statement by Richard Miller - Retired Teacher (AFT) and Alliance leader in Nevada

The Governor’s  budget proposes to slash essential services to seniors is now being revealed for what it is.  Seniors are smart enough to recognize a scam when they see it.

A tax increase for the most vulnerable group in Nevada, seniors are being asked to sacrifice while the Governor’s rich friends are held harmless.

Where is the “shared sacrifice” he espouses?

Using his unrealistic bumper sticker slogan of  “No New taxes” diverts attention from the real issue from the voting public.

These mean-spirited cuts hit the most vulnerable the hardest.  He is willing to balance the budget on the backs of seniors and other most in need and can’t afford it.

He wants to remove the small benefits of $335.00 for the average Senior who is struggling to hold on to their homes, provide food on their table and make their prescription drug and home payments.

These benefits become essential to seniors and disabled in the name of shared sacrifice while protecting the richest and most powerful in our State.

The  17,000 seniors and with  further downturn of the economy these are the very people who can least  afford this loss of the Senior citizens’ Property Assistance Program.

No one should believe the Governor’s rhetoric of his simplistic approach of “no new taxes”: when seniors who qualify because of their low income will be given the tax increase by removing this small but essential benefit.

While seniors and their grand children are sacrificing, the mIning and Casino industry go without paying their fair share of the tax burden and are free to make enormous contributions to their friends in the Governor mansion and the legislature.

Year after year, there have been commissions that have made recommendations to create a broad-based and fair tax system to move this state to a sustainable future and continued growth.
 
Over the year, no one has been willing to muster the political will to fix the antiquated tax system, which allows businesses to go virtually untaxed and doesn’t provide adequate funding to sustain essential and basic services.

These proposed cuts reveal that the “shared sacrifice “ is anything but shared.  

Be assured the proposed budget is just a shell game.  The plan is to not only cut services from those in most need, but to take money from the Counties, thereby cutting even further the essential services seniors and the young depend on.  This will force local government to raise our taxes and fees

In this way the Governor can say he didn’t raise your taxes.

Instead of approaching our budget crisis in a courageous and creative way, the Governor’s proposal merely pushes the problem off to the future and on to the backs of the poor, elderly, disabled and the young.

Unless the legislators step up,  we again will see wheel chairs taken from seniors  and again denying them the essential services they require for them to live out their golden years with some dignity.

We call upon the Legislators to not approve this heartless cut.