A Nevada Senator’s Ruckus

Taxpayer Tomfoolery and Housing Hopes

Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is kickin’ up dust like a mule in a dry wash over some mighty curious goin’s-on in Washington. It ain’t no tale of silver mines, but it’s got its share of high stakes and sharp tongues, and I reckon it’s worth a listen.

Now, Senator Cortez Masto, she’s got her feathers ruffled somethin’ fierce, claimin’ that the Department of Homeland Security—DHS, they call it—and a newfangled outfit dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE–sounds like a hound let loose in a henhouse–have been nosin’ ‘round the Internal Revenue Service for a peek at folks’ private tax papers. She and a posse of fifteen other Senate Democrats, led by a feller named Ron Wyden from Oregon, penned a letter hotter than a Nevada noon, hollerin’ that these Trump administration rascals are up to no good.

Accordin’ to the senator, who’s quotin’ a Washington Post tale, DHS wants the IRS to fork over home addresses, phone numbers, and email particulars of nigh on 700,000 souls, all in a bid to round up what she calls undocumented immigrants. She points out that millions of taxpayers, some without them fancy Social Security numbers, use a thing called an ITIN to settle up with Uncle Sam, and they do it trustin’ the IRS won’t go blabbin’ their business to every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a badge.

But that ain’t the half of it.

The same Senator Cortez Masto, she’s been wrestlin’ with the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco—FHLBank-SF, if you’re keepin’ score—like a prospector pannin’ for gold, and she’s struck a vein. She’s roped in a cool $10 million to prop up Nevada’s affordable housin’ efforts, the first of its kind for the Nevada Housin’ Division’s bond program. It comes after she nabbed $9.4 million last year from the same outfit, near doublin’ what they gave afore, and she’s still pushin’ for more, like a gambler doublin’ down at the faro table.

Then she stood afore a joint session o’ the Nevada state legislature, talkin’ turkey ‘bout the Trump administration’s doin’s and how they’re rattlin’ the good folks o’ Nevada. She owned up to votin’ for a bill to keep the government from shutterin’ its doors, but she reckoned it would leave Nevadans high and dry, workin’ for no pay like fools in a storm.

But here’s where the plot thickens. The good senator frets that in their zeal to trim the fat of government waste, the Trump crew might take a chainsaw to Medicaid, a lifeline for Nevada’s sick and needy. Meanwhile, the White House swears they won’t touch them benefits, but Cortez Masto ain’t buyin’ it.

And if that weren’t enough, she’s worried that federal cuts’ll leave the state legislature scramblin’ to raise taxes or slash healthcare, a pickle sourer than a barrel o’ pickles. So there you have it, a tale of one senator fightin’ tooth and nail for her Nevada kin, callin’ out the high-handed and haulin’ in dollars where she can.