By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

CARSON CITY, Nev. – Nevada’s Democratic lawmakers love a good joke.

On Monday, Senate Democrats told a real side-splitter when they announced plans for a “temporary” $255 million payroll tax increase on Nevada’s large businesses to raise new revenue for K-12 government schools.

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The punch-line, of course, is that there is no such thing as a temporary tax increase.

Okay, so their act isn’t quite Vegas-quality yet.

But in case Nevada taxpayers don’t laugh at the prospect of paying higher taxes (either directly or indirectly), the Democrats are prepared to get serious and explain why they need the money.

“Throughout the session, there has been bipartisan agreement that we need to do more for education, and this is the only proposal that immediately solves our funding shortfall,” said Senate Majority Leader Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

Denis says the state’s public schools should offer more English programs for non-English speaking students,  and need smaller class sizes and full-day kindergarten (translation: free daycare for working parents). All of that would require a lot of tax money.

Denis is even promising that Democrats will have a long-range plan to restructure Nevada’s tax system by the time the “temporary” tax expires in 2015, the Associated Press reports.

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On the off chance the Democrats’ $255 million payroll tax plan turned out to be temporary, the odds are very good that those dollars would be replaced through taxes and fees on other things that would dent taxpayer wallets.

That can be said with a high degree of certainty because once school leaders have money added to their budgets, they always fight tooth-and-nail to keep it.

When it comes to school spending, district leaders and school employee unions only know one word: More!

Having said all that, the Democrats’ plan is unlikely to go anywhere.

Republican leaders in the state Assembly and Senate have declared the plan “dead on arrival.”

At a recent press conference, Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval said the best way to help fund education is by growing the economy and creating jobs.

Sandoval is pushing his own education budget that increases K-12 spending by $120 million over the next two years, a per-pupil increase of more than $300.

“As more resources have become available, I have continued to invest in education,” Sandoval said, according to KTVU.com.