Pity poor state Sen. Bob Beers. The poor guy defends the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, and even “prospects” for new members for the business group. And how is he repaid? With a big slap in the face, as the chamber today came out against his Tax and Spending Control initiative. Talk about your lack of gratitude.

Now, don’t get us wrong. The chamber is right to oppose TASC, which would put handcuffs on state lawmakers and result, as the chamber says, in unintended consequences. But it’s still a blow to Beers, given that he and the chamber are usually natural allies.

Here’s the text of the chamber’s release:

LV Chamber Announces Opposition to TASC

Proposed Amendment Ignores Long-Term Liability of Public Employee Retirement Benefits

Las Vegas – Today, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce’s Government Affairs Committee announced its opposition to the Tax And Spending Control (TASC) constitutional initiative petition. The Committee found that the TASC proposal does not address the largest long-term financial liabilities of the State and that the proposed amendment to the State Constitution is most likely to result in unintended consequences that would be difficult to remedy.

“We believe that two of the largest long-term financial liabilities for Nevada taxpayers at the state and local levels are funding the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) and the Public Employees Benefits Program (PEBP) for retirees,” said Kara J. Kelley, president & CEO of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce. “TASC does not address these two key issues and more specifically exempts PERS from the constraints of TASC. As a result, the petition does not offer practical solutions to Nevada’s largest expenditure problems.”

The Chamber supports responsible spending for state and local governments, and believes that all government spending should have a measurable and accountable return on investment for the taxpayers.

“By supporting a taxpayer return on investment through efficient government spending, the Chamber ensures businesses grow our local economy, improve our quality of life and create jobs in Nevada,” stated Kelley.

The Chamber is also concerned that future tax decisions will be made exclusively at the ballot box.

“The public has a right and an obligation to be involved in government spending,” said Government Affairs Chairman Steve Hill. “But ballot initiatives are certainly contested between - and often won by - highly- funded special interest groups. These sound bite battles have the potential to lead to poor long-term tax policy.”

The Chamber supports a broad-based, transparent, consistent and stable tax base. As a result of provisions in the initiative, TASC would drive Nevada to create a more narrow tax base and hidden taxes that would undermine the equability of the tax system.

“Provisions of TASC are likely to lead to exactly the opposite kind of tax structure, where only narrow taxes applied to politically vulnerable taxpayers will be approved,” explained Kelley.

Finally, TASC is a constitutional initiative petition that would amend the Nevada Constitution. The Chamber maintains that the Constitution should contain the guiding principles of government, not the details of legislating. TASC will place complicated mechanical procedures into the Constitution, which may result in future unforeseen problems that would be difficult to remedy.

“For the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce to support any constitutional changes, we need to have the highest confidence that not only the policy, but also the implementation of that policy is without question,” commented Hill.

###

• Flagging support for the warrantless spying on American citizens? Then why not cite a thwarted terrorist plot to boost support for illegal spying? That’s what President George W. Bush did Friday, telling America about a plot to destroy the “Liberty Tower” in Los Angeles. (It was actually called the “Library Tower” before being re-named the U.S. Bank Tower; it’s the tall circular building in downtown Los Angeles.)

Couple things. No. 1, authorities don’t even know if the plot was serious. No. 2, perpetrators were arrested in Asia before they could carry it out. No. 3, and most important, there was no connection with the NSA spying program whatever. So how can this incident even be mentioned in the same sentence as the NSA program? Good question, but not one the president is likely to answer any time soon.

• We already knew it, but now there’s confirmation. A former CIA official in charge of the Middle East says Bush and his aides “cherry picked” intelligence to bolster what analysts came to believe was a predetermined case for going to war. Analysis showed that post-war Iraq would not be a fertile ground for democracy, but would be a fertile ground for guerrilla warfare. Hmmm, seems like the CIA was right after all.

• The monorail had its worst-ever month in January, carrying just 18,187 average riders per day, while seeing its bonds drop to “BB” status, a further descent into “junk” territory.

This further puts in jeopardy the monorail’s plan to expand to the airport or the west side of the Strip. With a bond rating in junk status, borrowing is nearly impossible, and certainly very costly. Private investment isn’t going to bridge the gap. That leaves public financing, and the monorail should in no way, shape or form be allowed anywhere near the public treasury.

Why? Well, let’s just say it’s in retaliation for the lies of monorail founder Bob Broadbent and his consultants, who promised 50,000 average riders per day. Credible opposing experts said average ridership would be half what Broadbent predicted. They were right, he was wrong, but he still managed to convince the state not to tax the monorail because it’s a “charity.” The public has done enough for this white elephant; now it needs to sink or swim on its own.

• We’re not quite sure what Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce President Kara Kelley was talking about in the Review-Journal Sunday. Kelley, who sits on the board of the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, said the Las Vegas Convention Center — up for a $737 million expansion — shouldn’t use tax dollars to compete with private convention centers, like the ones at the Venetian or Mandalay Bay. According to her review, the expansion doesn’t do that.

Oh, yes it does. And once the expansion is finished, it will compete even more. That’s just a fact.

The only way to eliminate that competition, in fact, would be to sell the convention center to a private exhibitor. And since the expansion is funded by room taxes, any private owner would have to pay for expansion privately, as the Venetian and Mandalay Bay have done.

So why is nobody, save perhaps for Venetian owner Sheldon Adelson angry about this? Because most Strip hotel owners know the Las Vegas Convention Center brings tons of people to town, and fills their hotel rooms. And once the expansion is finished, those numbers will only go up. (The expansion, while expensive, looks extremely cool, by the way.)

A communally held asset funded by taxes that benefits everybody? Say it isn’t so.

• Quotable: “I have never been so mad in my life, and as God as my witness, I am not going to take it anymore. I am sick and tired of having to be part of a delegation that includes [U.S. Rep.] Jim Gibbons and [U.S. Rep.] Jon Porter, and I want them both gone.” — U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, on her fellow members of Congress. (Quoted in the R-J.)

And people say we’re scorched earth.

• And finally today, Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a fellow hunter on a south Texas ranch while stalking quail Saturday. The shooting wasn’t confirmed by Cheney’s office until news of the incident was broken by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. The newspaper has posted an update on its website, revealing that the local sheriff’s department didn’t begin investigating until a day after the incident.

Well, that makes it official: Now the vice president now has more actual combat experience than the president.

But seriously, folks, the Texas lawyer Cheney shot in the face, neck and chest, Harry Whittington, was to be moved out of intensive care soon. For his part, the vice president flew back to Washington. Whittington apparently didn’t announce his presence after he wandered into Cheney’s line of fire, nor could he detect the black aura of evil that surrounds the vice president. (Well, Whittington is a rich lawyer. Their senses are sometimes dulled.)

We at Various Things & Stuff don’t mind criticism. We dish it out by the metric ton, and so not being able to take it would be the height of hypocrisy.

But we do like to respond to criticism, even if it comes from a less-than-legitimate outlet, like the e-mails of one George Harris, aka Liberty Watch.

We knew right away that today’s missive — directed at CityLife’s Jan. 9 cover story, “16 ways to make Las Vegas a better place” — wasn’t written by Harris himself. Why? It was literate. That could only mean one thing: Harris’ doppelganger, banker Doug French.

French handles most of the e-mailing duties, giving Harris more time to come up with political schemes and strategies that are destined to fail miserably. French is, on rare occasions, an entertaining read, even if we disagree with him.

In today’s e-mail missive, French takes CityLife to task for some of the ideas found in this week’s cover story, but not before accusing us of satirizing Liberty Watch: The Magazine. We admit we have used satire, but only to lambaste the very serious problem that is Liberty Watch: The Magazine columnist Ken Ward, and his racist rants.

After coming out against diversity and neighborliness (”Most people can’t stand each other. I respect their judgment,” French quotes another columnist as saying) and voting (”Abstaining from voting is, in effect, making a personal sacrifice [however academic] in service of upholding an important moral principle,” he quotes again) French finally gets to the point. He thinks our advocacy of the gross receipts tax is wrong.

The GRT hurts small business, which in turn hurts job creation and innovation, French says. And that’s a fair and legitimate point. It’s also probably why the GRT, as advocated during the 2003 Legislature, contained a healthy exemption specifically to protect small businesses. Curiously, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, which boasts that 85 percent of its members are small businesses, opposed the tax. Why? The big members, which pay big dues, told the chamber to.

Alas, French goes beyond his expertise when he typed his next line, which went from legitimate criticism to assigning motives. “By promoting the GRT, Sebelius is only carrying the water for his friends who occupy the executive wings on the Strip.”

First, we at Various Things & Stuff have no friends in executive wings on the Strip. It probably has something to do with our longtime advocacy of raising the top tier of the gross gambling tax, or perhaps railing against the inordinate influence that casinos have over state politics. Perhaps its our pillorying of the concept of “private” sidewalks outside Strip resorts, our support of organized labor, or the questions we raised about Strip water features when water czars were telling the rest of us we couldn’t wash our cars. Perhaps our repeated examination of the industry’s hypocritical approach to Indian gambling played a role, too.

In short, we don’t have any friends on the Strip. Which is too bad, since we think many of those folks are nice, smart and interesting people.

No, we advocated for the GRT for a reason that might shock French: Principle. We simply think it’s the right thing to do, for all the reasons we gave, and more. So, Mr. French, don’t go guessing about our motives, and we promise not to impugn yours. (How hard would it be to say, “Doug French, a banker, only defends small business so banks can continue to profit by dealing with small business”? Not hard. But we assume, perhaps wrongly, that French’s opposition to the GRT is as principled as our support of it.)

French closes by saying at least CityLife didn’t advocate paying cops or teachers more. We actually do advocate that; we just didn’t get around to putting it on our list.