Chuck Muth: Budget battle - A bad bargain for the right

I don't like admitting it, but boy was I wrong. As Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over 'til it's over." And while I declared in last week's column that the budget battle was over and the Democrats had lost ... wow, was that ever a premature proclamation.

From a conservative point of view, this budget deal - which has media-types who spat out Gov. Brian Sandoval's name in disgust as recently as a week ago now singing his praises - is like a kettle of dead fish festering in a Las Vegas alley at high noon in the middle of July. The smell just gets worse the longer it sits out there.

Don't let the Republican legislators who vote for this deal fool you with their BS press releases and statements. They had options and alternatives; they just didn't have any convictions.

The Grand Compromise, described as "groundbreaking" and "historic," was nothing more than business as usual. The Democrats got what they wanted while Republicans got little more than table scraps. Yum.

And yet ... the Democrats aren't satisfied with an additional $600 million worth higher taxes in the form of the sunset extensions in the Grand Compromise. Nothing is ever enough for them. They always come back for more, more, more.

Indeed, Democrats are reportedly already laying plans to pursue a ballot initiative or two to tax your haircuts and dry cleaning, as well as impose the corporate income tax, Gross Receipts 2.0, they reflexively salivate over.

In announcing the Grand Compromise, the administration claimed it had cut spending $500 million ... which immediately calls into question why we needed to increase taxes $600 million to fund a budget that was $500 million less?

It's also interesting to note what the $500 million represents. It's actually the hole created after legislators irresponsibly used $450 million worth of federal "stimulus" money - which stimulated nothing more than higher unemployment - for ongoing programs in the 2009 budget rather than treating it as the one-shot infusion of cash that it was.

So that $500 million "cut" in the budget deal is really a cut in spending that should have been cut in 2009. You'll pardon me if I don't see this "cut" as particularly applause-worthy.

Now don't get me wrong. As I've written before, I don't agree with the Governor's decision and think the deal stinks. However, I refuse to allow the Left, and even some on the Right, to drive a wedge between us over this. He did what he thought he had to do. We'll agree to disagree and move forward ... preferably rightward.

That said, there is no reason for supposed conservative Republican legislators who represent Republican-majority districts to vote for this budget deal. And any who do deserve a primary challenge in 2012.

• Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach. He may be reached at chuck@citizenoutreach.com.