[lksteve]

Originally Posted by wet dog

Nevada has had it's greatest growth, not form gaming - but from agriculture, mining, engineering, domestic product distribution centers, high quality of life, low housing costs, (compared to CA), access to more while costing less, ease of businesses to open businesses, and city managers that made it easy to do so.

I managed a surveying department for an engineering firm in Reno...we had 150 employees company-wide and 70 in Reno...today, I am working for the Census Bureau in Colorado and the firm has fewer than 100 employees and the Reno office is down below 50....the ease of doing business cannot overcome the lack of an underlying foundation to the economy...my ex wife is a state employee who had to take a 20% pay cut and reduction in benefits to keep her job...the truth be told, when California sneezes, Nevada catches the flu...

Colorado tax revenues are down. Education and Open Range initiatives were supposed to be paid by 'gambling money'. Nevada learned 70 years ago, what every other state is just beginning to comprehend.

Nevada has pissed away its revenues...the budget for 2009-2010 was out of whack by over a billion and the current budget is being revised downward...the state is in worse shape than Colorado and the unemployment rate is upwards of 15%...