By J. Patrick Coolican (contact)

Friday, Jan. 11, 2013 | 2 a.m.

J. Patrick Coolican

We often hear critiques of Nevada’s tax system — that it is unstable and at the mercy of boom-and-bust cycles, that it relies too heavily on the tourism and development industries.

But we rarely hear about our tax system’s biggest problem: It’s regressive, meaning the poor pay a bigger portion of their income in taxes than the middle class, and the middle class pay more than the rich.

So I was heartened to hear former state Sen. Sheila Leslie emphasize this point in a speech Wednesday to the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada in advance of Gov. Brian Sandoval’s State of the State address and the upcoming legislative session.

“What if we were to tax the rich as much as the poor in our state?” she said.

Indeed, according to a 2009 analysis released by the Institute on Taxation Economic Policy, the richest 1 percent of Nevadans pay an effective state and local tax rate of 1.6 percent while the poorest 20 percent of Nevadans paid 8.9 percent.

The middle 60 percent pay 6.1 percent in state and local taxes.

Why does our tax system weigh down the backs of the middle class and the poor?

Because we rely heavily on the sales tax. It’s the largest single revenue source for the general fund — and it is by definition regressive. A person who earns $500,000 per year, for instance, will spend only a small fraction on taxable goods. Their other money is either saved and invested or goes to pay for services, such as landscaping or private tutoring, which are not subject to sales taxes.

A poor person, by contrast, may make $15,000 and be forced to spend nearly all of it to survive, with much of the money spent on taxable goods. Hence the disparity.

A middle-class resident falls somewhere in the middle.

The injustice is exacerbated because the poorest children have less opportunity to rise into the middle class — once considered an inarguable plank of the social contract — because they often attend mediocre, underfunded schools.

A class war? You bet there is, and in Nevada, the rich are winning in a landslide.

Any Nevada tax reform proposal that doesn’t address this unjust disparity is not even worth discussing.

Of course, the easiest method for tax equity would be an income tax. If you don’t want the rich to pay more, fine; everybody could pay the same percentage of their income. A flat tax. Conservatives love this at the federal level, so why not here in Nevada?

In Nevada, however, the suggestion of an income tax tends to be treated like a ribeye at a convention of vegetarians. Still, it’s the best solution.

Barring that, Leslie recommended the next best thing: taxing corporations that are getting something pretty close to a free ride.

“Nevada is one of three states that do not tax corporate profits,” she said. “What if these highly profitable mega-corporations paid a nominal percentage of their profits in taxes to Nevada like they do in other states?” A good question.

Of course, Nevada’s status as a tax haven for corporations has led to widespread prosperity here, right? Oh, guess not.

Leslie also advocated raising taxes on gold mining companies, which enjoy some of the most favorable tax treatment in the country, if not the world, on a nonrenewable resource that can only be found in a handful of places, including Nevada.

I often hear from lobbyists for mining companies and other corporate interests that these ideas wouldn’t really solve our revenue problem or amount to enough money to properly fund our schools. Perhaps, but so what? It would get us part of the way there, so it’s worth doing.

But again, let’s put aside the toxic question of tax increases and focus instead on tax fairness. Assume the same level of revenue. Why should the poor sacrifice more than the rich?

Sandoval has made it clear he has no intention of doing anything about the rank unfairness of our tax system.

I’ll be happily surprised if the Democrats offer a forceful alternative, but I wouldn’t count on it. They usually answer to the same masters.

In Leslie’s words, “Nothing is more powerful in Nevada than the gambling, mining and banking cabal of lobbying interests and their lawmaker friends …”

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The seed catalogs now arriving in our mailboxes do more than alert us to plants we may want to add to our gardens.

Catalogs and gardening magazines stimulate our senses with the color and beauty we crave during the dark and often-dreary days of winter.

But with the blossoming Pinterest, gardeners have another great way to connect with the things they love. The online site, which combines social networking with electronic scrapbooking, allows us to envelope ourselves in stunningly beautiful and inspiring virtual environments with the click of a mouse.

At Pinterest .com, images of remarkable gardens, garden projects and landscapes are endlessly available as are those featuring other subjects that appeal to gardeners like food, home décor, health and fitness and special events.

Once you sign up and start “pinning” everything you like to your own boards, you will be invited to “follow” the pins of your Facebook friends or strangers who seem to share your tastes.

Linda Orton, a Master Gardener and co-founder of the Mid-South Hydrangea Society, finds using Pinterest is an easier way to keep up with ideas than ripping pages out of magazines and putting them in folders.

“You’re not cluttering your home with paper, and the visual images are easier to find and use than articles,” she said. “I’m always taking notes, but then I can’t find them. I can always find what I put on my Pinterest board.”

She’s been saving ideas for irrigation systems and building beds for the vegetable garden she plans to start in the spring, and storing information on making hypertufa containers for a program she will be leading on the subject.

A holiday decorating photo sparked her decision to put branches of heavily berried holly branches into two white ironstone pitchers enhanced with bows on the handles.

“It was an easy thing to do, and it lasted about three weeks in my kitchen,” she said. “It was something I wouldn’t have thought of doing.”

Pinterest was launched in 2010 as a closed site available by invitation only. Smartphone apps and open enrollment were added last August.

Its mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting” via a global platform of inspiration and idea sharing.

Women make up 83 percent of its users.

Master Gardener Sharon Kauerz uses the garden photos on Pinterest for inspiration and information.

“When I see ideas for landscaping and gardening from all over the world, it reminds me that I’ve had some good ideas too,” said Kauerz, who is also collecting photos to inspire a bathroom remodeling project.

She is savvy enough to know some of the gorgeous landscaping ideas presented at Pinterest are not always adaptable to our climate, our budgets and our environments, especially when you must deal with hungry deer and voles.

“I like the pictures, but I also find a lot of useful information on the blogs where many of the photos come from,” she said. “I wish I had more time to spend on Pinterest.”

Ah, yes. Users of Pinterest find it easy to while away minutes and even hours.

“I may spend a lot of time on it on a day off and then go a week or more without looking at it,” Orton said.

Evelyn Mosley used the site extensively to plan the rehearsal dinner preceding the Oct. 28 marriage of her son Todd to Ashley Jackson in Asheville, N.C.

To go with the rustic architecture of the venue, she and her co-hosts tied burlap fabric into giant bows and floated candles in canning jars of various sizes.

They wrote “Welcome Friends” on two pumpkins, but instead of placing them in a wheelbarrow as they were pictured on Pinterest, they nestled them into an old wash tub on the front porch.

“One idea generated another and another,” said Mosley, a Master Gardener who is past president of the Memphis Herb Society. “One guest told us our party should be on Pinterest.”

Frustration can sometimes follow inspiration. As I browsed the site, I was intrigued by a metal chair “upholstered” in sedum and equipped with a sedum-covered “bolster pillow.”

But I came up empty when I tried to find out how the plants were placed in soil. Then on close examination of the photo, I caught a glimpse of a shallow cookie sheet presumably filled with soil on the chair seat. How-to instructions would have been appreciated.

But in most instances, a few clicks of the mouse will take you to the image’s original site, where you can view comments from the creator and, often, instructions on doing it yourself.

Many clicks often come with welcome distractions, like the recipe I randomly found for Mexican Vegetable Soup with Lime and Avocado.

An avid and innovative cook, Mosley stores lots of recipes on her Pinterest pages, including one for the jalapeño popper quiche she took to several potluck parties during the holidays.

It allows her to use up the peppers she and her husband, Phil, grew in their vegetable garden last summer.

They are still harvesting lettuces, greens, bok choys and Savoy cabbages from the box beds they protect with floating fabric row covers.

Mosley pinned her favorite greens cookbook on her Pinterest board. It’s “Great Greens” by Georgeanne Brennan.

Orton accesses her Pinterest boards from her smartphone when she is shopping at the supermarket.”I can check on the ingredients I need to buy for the recipes I’ve pinned,” she said. “I love it.”

Herbal Renewal grants

The Memphis Herb Society is seeking applications for its annual Herbal Renewal program, which provides small grants to nonprofit associations that plan to use herbs in their educational and/or beautification projects.

Grants, which usually run $100 to $250, will be made in early spring.

Applicants must provide a brief statement of purpose for the proposed herb project, an estimate of the total cost, details of the project including the herbs to be grown, and the plan for maintaining them.

To get an application form, send a request to postcoker@hotmail .com with “Herb Garden Grants” in the subject line. Or send a request to Herb Garden Grants, P.O. Box 652, Olive Branch, MS 38654-0652.