#NVSen: Berkley’s Election Year Flip-Flop Raises Taxes on Small Businesses

As NV Leads Nation in Unemployment, Berkley Votes to Kill 6,000 NV Jobs 

(Las Vegas, NV) – Seven-term Congresswoman Shelley Berkley made yet another election-year flip-flop, this time deciding it was better to side with President Obama and Nancy Pelosi rather than protecting 6,000 Nevada jobs.  Congresswoman Berkley voted against extending tax cuts for small businesses, less than two years after voting to keep the current tax rates in place.

“Congresswoman Berkley, you agreed it was important to extend tax cuts on small businesses less than two years ago, but now you think we should raise taxes? During a recession? Today’s vote was a flip-flop during an election year, plain and simple.

“Siding with Nancy Pelosi and voting for a bill that would could cost more than 6,000 jobs in Nevada and shrink the state’s economy by $1.7 billion will not help Nevadans get back to work. Nevada’s small businesses cannot afford this tax increase, especially when they are trying to create jobs for the 11.6 percent of Nevadans that are unemployed,” said Chandler Smith, Heller for Senate spokeswoman.

Background:

In 2010, Shelley Berkley voted to extend all tax cuts, including for  those who earned above $250,000 (H.R. 4853, December 16, 2010 House Roll Call Vote #647)

Today, Shelley Berkley voted against H.R. 8, the Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act of 2012, which would extend tax relief provisions enacted in 2001 and 2003 and reaffirmed in 2010. (H.R. 8, House Roll Call Vote #545)

The Democrats tax hike plan could destroy 710,000 jobs. (Robert Carroll and Gerald Prante, “Long-Run Macroeconomic Impact of Increasing Tax Rates on High-Income Taxpayers in 2013,” Ernst & Young, July 2012, Appendix C)

And according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, 940,000 small businesses would get hit by Democrats’ latest tax hike. “So the 2013 tax cliff is a big enough economic problem that President Obama now wants to postpone it for some taxpayers. But it isn’t so big that he’s willing to curb his desire to raise taxes on tens of thousands of job-creating businesses.” (Editorial, “Off the Tax Cliff He Goes,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/12/2012)