A glimpse into why mining is so afraid of a tax getting before voters

One of the reasons mining's Carson City clout is so formidable is because the industry knows it must extinguish taxing efforts in that compliant universe lest the effort get before less-friendly voters.

This is not some hypothetical; there is plenty of empirical evidence. Here's some:

Before he abandoned his attempt to tax mining last year, businessman Monte Miller hired master voter contact man Billy Rogers to gauge support. So Rogers went door-to-door asking folks how they felt about raising the mining tax from 5 percent to 9 percent.

Out of 22,991 interviews completed before Miller decided not to proceed, Rogers identified 18,634 mining tax hike supporters. That's 81 percent.

So not only would a mining tax pass -- my guess is no matter what the industry did to try to block any ballot question -- it would pass overwhelmingly.

Highlights (and the full demographics are attached here):

·         Overall, 81 percent supported increasing the mining tax

·         88 percent of Democrats supported increasing the mining tax

·         80 percent of non-partisan and third-party registrants supported increasing the mining tax

·         73.5 percent of Republicans supported increasing the mining tax

Why do you think mining is so worried about SJR 15 passing and an alternative to the margins tax getting on the ballot? Why do you think the industry will do everything politically and legally in its power to prevent that from happening?

Now you know.

 

 

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