Jon Ralston on Politics

Chamber's fuzzy math

By Jon Ralston / Staff Writer

I know it's a little early in the new year, and perhaps it is the holiday season afterglow, but I have to gush: Thank God for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce.

I know. I say that a lot. And if you are a chamber member, I am sure you do, too.

And if you don't know why, let me tell you. Or better yet, let the chamber's vice president for public affairs tell you:

"Do you know how much money the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce Government Affairs Department saved your company last year?" Christina Dugan asked members in a recent issue of the organization's publication, The Business Voice. "Most companies realized direct savings of at least $600 in 2005 from Chamber-supported advocacy efforts."

As you get on your word processor to pen a note of thanks to the chamber for your additional wealth last year, perhaps you might pause to ask yourself the same question I did when I read that: What the hell is she talking about?

Dugan has an answer and she actually goes into some detail to provide it. Seems the chamber is taking credit for savings companies reaped from the property tax cap, the DMV rebate, the payroll tax reduction and a general sales tax deduction. I won't address the legitimacy -- or lack thereof -- of the claim just yet.

But if you do the chamber math -- this is the same arithmetic that produces 379 tax positions during the 2003 Legislature, including at least one that advocated a billion-dollar increase -- here are the savings:

• Small company with five employees, making $36,000 a year in a $250,000 building with one car: $591 in chamber math savings

• Medium company with 25 employees, same salaries, in a $1.5 million building with three cars: $1,737 in chamber math savings

• Big company with 100 employees, same salaries, in $5 million building with 10 cars: $5,325 in chamber math savings

Now these are some serious savings thanks to the chamber's Herculean efforts. If only it were true.

If you can get past the insane, matter-of-fact declaration that the chamber "saved your company" these amounts last year -- and I doubt you can -- consider the truth.

The chamber is responsible for the payroll tax -- this is one issue it did lobby for successfully. The chamber created the momentum for it, lobbied for it and took credit for it in 2003. And now the group is boasting about a cut in a tax it enacted -- this is the height of chutzpah.

I wonder how much money a company would have saved if the payroll tax did not exist. Can someone get the chamber to calculate that and mail that figure to its members?

The chamber's lobbying efforts also weren't needed to get that tiny payroll tax cut passed, either. That was the brainchild of state Sen. Bob Beers, who saw an opportunity and seized it. He didn't need the chamber firepower on that one.

As for the DMV rebate, that was Beers again, followed by the governor. The final product that emerged from the legislative blender may have had some chamber help but not much.

I won't even address the sales tax deduction because it's so silly. But I will give the chamber partial credit -- not the full monty -- because the business group, along with many others, helped get the cap lowered from 13 percent on businesses to 8 percent.

I suppose it would be bad form to raise the question of that rate being different from the 3 percent residential cap, thus creating a potentially illegal split roll. Or pointing out that chamber members should ask why businesses shouldn't get the same cap as individuals, instead of a legally questionable Rube Goldberg scheme. So I will not mention that.

Dugan credits the government affairs team with other victories, some of them apparently with incalculable dollar figures in savings -- "protecting business from frivolous lawsuits" and "keeping a lid on public employee salaries," for instance.

In fact, at the end of her message to the 7,000 or so suckers, er members, Dugan declares, "Sometimes putting a monetary value on government affairs efforts can be difficult."

But not impossible if you know how to use chamber math.

In Business commentator Jon Ralston also hosts the news discussion program "Face to Face With Jon Ralston" on Las Vegas ONE, publishes the daily e-mail newsletter "RalstonFlash.com" and writes columns and a political notebook for the Las Vegas Sun. To subscribe to Flash, go to www.RalstonFlash.com, or call 990-2550. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or by e-mail at ralston@vegas.com.

IBLV Homepage