After all, the proposal doesn’t call for cutting government expenditures back to the levels seen in 1995, or 1985, or 1975 -- in none of which years can I recall any widespread public outcry that “Government is too small; they don’t take enough of my paycheck, darn it!”

No: Modeled on the Taxpayer Bill of Rights successfully enacted by Coloradans in 1992, the proposal would merely restrain the growth of government spending, above current levels, to the rates of inflation and population growth, combined.

The hunger of the state socialists to eventually have government consume all our wealth -- thus, presumably, making the struggle to acquire any good or service about as easy and convenient as waiting in line at the DMV or the current application process for a machine gun permit -- is revealed when they dig in their fingernails like a cat headed for the bathtub and shriek, “We’ll starve! This means draconian cuts! There’ll be no schoolbooks for the children!”

One of two things is true: either a) This is a lie, or b) these characters envision today’s $70,000 government lightbulb changer earning $100,000 (plus tax-paid lifetime health care) in three years -- guaranteed lifetime luxury and comfort for every placeholder -- and would rather perform that kneeling service for the unionized work force than prioritize the use of today’s more-than-adequate tax revenues to focus on the cost-efficient delivery of those few legitimate and necessary functions actually authorized by the state constitution.

For of course, the majority of the safely gerrymandered denizens of Carson City are beholden not to those who will be lined up at the mailboxes tonight, having struggled to pay their taxes or else to plead for a partial “refund.” In those few districts where the voter registration edge of the incumbent’s party doesn’t make election day about as relevant as the Taiwanese Little League playoffs, they pretty much count on us to re-elect whoever could afford the biggest, prettiest signs and mailers.

This leaves our lawmakers safe to commune mostly with the professional bureaucratic class, who can take as much paid time as necessary to go cavil and commune in the corridors of power, promising to bundle up all kinds of campaign donations (to buy colorful billboards and direct-mail pieces) for anyone who continues to do their bidding.

This is why, as Sen. Beers frankly admits, Colorado got its TABOR only when voters spoke directly at the polls.

“Zero legislatures have passed this,” the senator sighs.

In all likelihood, an initiative petition is the only way Nevadans will ever acquire similar protection from a rate of parasitic government growth that threatens to overwhelm the host organism -- us.

So, is it a waste of time for the Senate Finance Committee to forward TABOR to the Senate floor?

Not at all.

The Nevada Legislature should enact Senate Joint Resolution 5. Those who vote against this sensible reining in of future government growth are no friends of everyday Nevadans, struggling to keep their own families clothed and fed.

And it is precisely to identify those enemies of the people that this TABOR measure should be OK’d by the Senate Finance Committee, forwarded to the Senate floor for a vote, and then sent on to its inevitable demise at the lard-lubricatred hands of tax-fattened Assembly Democrats.

Because taxpayers deserve to know how every one of those delegates votes, so that -- when TABOR is finally approved at the polls, a few years hence -- they can also take that opportunity to send some of its enemies into retirement, as well.

We’re taking down names.