Week of May 21, 2026

From the editor’s desk

Last week, KUNR political reporter Lucia Starbuck interviewed the two Democratic candidates for governor, Alexis Hill and Aaron Ford. Hill led with this:

Nevada needs to modernize our tax system and invest in Nevadans. That is why I am running.

It got my attention. Politicians rarely frame taxes as something other than an evil scourge that should—and will, once they’re in office—be slashed. Did Hill actually propose that Nevada could stand to bolster its public coffers in order to help solve some widespread problems?

Starbuck raised that question immediately: 

Is raising taxes a popular idea right now? The incumbent governor has promised no new taxes. People move to this state because of low taxes. Is this going to be received well?

Hill pointed out that Nevada is 48th in per-pupil spending, and that many Nevadans’ health care needs are not met. (According to this 2025 scorecard, we rank 46th.) She said:

I have been touring this state since September and talking to voters about taxing billionaires and corporations, and voters think that that is the answer for this state. People are not paying their fair share to live and do business in this state. And we need to ensure that we are investing in Nevadans, especially during this economic crisis and especially while the federal government is pulling resources away. 

I won’t make a specific argument about how Nevada corporations, billionaires or ordinary residents should be taxed. I am not 100% opposed to Nevada’s “business-friendly” policies, nor am I any kind of Pollyanna about them; they are certainly abusable. I am not saying that taxes should be raised on middle-class workers or anyone living in poverty. But I will say this: Tax breaks and tax moratoriums have largely become campaign shorthand for: “Vote for me, because this sounds good now, and let’s not game it out to see if it really helps you.”

When the No Tax on Tips bill was being considered in 2025, it sounded, on its surface, like it could provide needed relief for Nevada’s nearly half-million restaurant, bar and casino employees, and other tipped workers. It had wide support. Nevada Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen—both Democrats—were in favor. Pretty much everyone was in favor. It passed the Senate unanimously.

But is it really helping workers gain an economic edge? A Nevada Independent report from 2025 raised some questions. One source saw the bill as a manipulative campaign promise:

Jeff Waddoups, an economist at UNLV, said in an interview that the policy should not be viewed as one that will particularly benefit the working class.

“It’s the fairly elite tipped workers that will benefit from this,” he said. “If you really want to help workers, what you do is you don’t cut their Medicaid, what you do is you increase tax credits to make it easier for them to raise their kids … What you do if you wanna get elected is you come up with no tax on tips.”

Another source for that same story, Culinary Union Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge, told The Indy: “The few things that were done for working class families are temporary, while the billionaires get their windfall tax credits permanent.” 

No Tax on Tips is scheduled to expire at the end of 2028.

We have a major disconnect in Nevada, and the U.S. as a whole, where the social safety net is particularly weak—and we speak of widespread public problems as if they can be solved with anything but significant public money. Any utterance that sounds like the tiniest whiff of socialism is vilified. (My friends who have taken up residency in countries where they now pay higher income taxes—but they don’t have to launch GoFundMe campaigns or file for bankruptcy if they experience an urgent medical issue—find the term more palatable.) 

In any case, it was a breath of fresh air just to hear a politician say the word “taxes” without automatically villainizing the concept or using it to manipulate voters into thinking she could help in ways that she couldn’t.

The reality is that Nevada’s social safety net is in shambles. We need to be talking about it in terms of real solutions.

Take care,

—Kris Vagner, managing editor