Look, we’re not saying that Gov. Jim Gibbons is a sophisticated android sent back from the future to totally screw up Nevada. But it sure seems like his neural net was disrupted during the trip. Every single time bad economic news comes up, he says the same thing.

Consider this from a Gibbons news release on the rise in Nevada’s unemployment rate:

The continued climb in the number of Nevadans without a job is troubling, both for the struggles those individuals and families are going through, and as a symbol of the turmoil our economy is going through. We have not seen an unemployment rate as high as 6.4 percent since 1994. As a state, we must continue working to encourage businesses to retain their workers and expand and hire new ones. To do so we cannot put an additional tax burden on businesses that are already struggling and coping with the economic downturn through layoffs. As we struggle to keep our budge balanced, I remain committed to doing so without raising taxes.” (emphasis added)

OK, first of all, nobody even mentioned raising taxes, except for the governor. Second, the more workers who are laid off, the more people who will be seeking government services, from unemployment compensation to social welfare to free health care, and thus the greater the burden on tax-supported services. Third, real people are suffering as the governor spouts off his one and only talking point, so maybe Gibbons should get a new fucking line already!

Anyway, maybe one of the governor’s staff wants to re-set his neural processor? The access port should be directly behind his right ear…