A Mighty Battle for a Penny in Nevada

In a grand display of legislative valor, U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, flanked by her trusty Montana counterpart, Steve Daines, has unsheathed the Small County PILT Parity Act—a bill of such magnificent importance that one wonders how civilization has managed to persist without it.

This noble measure, aimed at counties with fewer than 5,000 souls, would tweak the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) formula to shower a slightly less pitiful sum upon the proud but sparsely populated lands of Esmeralda, Eureka, Lincoln, Mineral, and Storey Counties. The concept is simple–Uncle Sam owns most of the land, won’t pay property taxes on it, and now, in boundless generosity, proposes to toss a few extra coins into the collection plate.

“This bipartisan bill ensures that our most rural counties are treated fairly,” declared Senator Cortez Masto, presumably with a straight face, as she championed the desperate quest for equity among counties competing for federal crumbs.

Meanwhile, bureaucrats in Washington, no doubt exhausted from their herculean efforts to carve out these marginal increases, patted themselves on the back for this triumph of rural justice. To enhance the newfound fairness–the bill introduces four breathtakingly specific new tiers—1,000, 2,000, 3,000, and 4,000—presumably so each county may now agonize over whether its population lands it in the “Pittance” or the “Slightly Larger Pittance” category.

While the good folks of Nevada’s least populous counties wait with bated breath for this windfall, the rest of the country can only marvel at Congress’s ability to tackle the issues of our time—one fraction of a tax dollar at a time.