Angle: Regulation, taxes hurt economy

Defending her ideas on how to create jobs and spur the economy, Sharron Angle on Thursday called for lifting "the fog of taxation and regulation" on business.

That would include ending an estate tax she contends hurts family companies by taking capital that could be used to expand business and hire more workers.

"We need to create a climate here in Nevada and in the United States that actually encourages businesses to perform and to perform at their very best," Angle said at family-owned Brady Industries, which opened a laundry plant in December with 100 workers that will double to 200 by year's end.

Angle, the Republican candidate challenging U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, took only a few questions from reporters after signing a pledge to repeal permanently what critics call a "death tax." But she limited queries to the topic at hand, a day after refusing to take any questions at a similar event in Reno.

"Today, we're concentrating on what will get America and especially Nevada back on its economic wheels, if you will," Angle said when asked why she wouldn't talk about other issues. "We've seen this recession hit us the hardest here in the state. And that's why we've taken time today to focus on this. And that's why we don't want to talk about other things."

More than six weeks since the Tea Party conservative won the GOP primary, Angle's campaign is trying to control her message by focusing on how to fix the economy -- and on blaming Reid for Nevada's record high 14.2 percent unemployment rate and record home foreclosures and bankruptcies.

The Reid campaign has accused Angle of dodging questions by avoiding full news conferences and doing interviews mostly with friendly conservative TV and talk radio hosts. And Reid has been using Angle's own words in those interviews to pummel her in TV and radio ads, including a clip of the Republican saying it's not a U.S. senator's job to create jobs.

At Brady Industries, Angle said her job is to create an environment for private business to thrive. Asked how that would help the unemployed, she said more money for companies means more jobs.

"Labor depends on capital. That's what a capitalist society is all about, having enough money to pay wages," Angle said, adding that now companies are hanging on to cash out of fear. "We know that there are many corporations just like Brady Industries that are holding back $2 trillion that they want to spend on creating jobs, but they can't see through the fog of taxation and regulation at the government level."

Eliminating the estate tax "would be a great step in the right direction to clearing out the fog of taxation and regulations that (would) allow these small businessmen to see where they can actually spend their capital on hiring folks," Angle said.

The estate tax temporarily expired at the end of last year but is supposed to go back into effect automatically in 2011 at a rate of 55 percent on assets above $1 million if Congress takes no action.

Reid favors returning to 2009 rules when the tax rate was 45 percent on estate assets above $3.5 million. His campaign said it would affect less than 1 percent of families and only hit the richest. Eliminating the tax could add $500 billion to the deficit over time, according to the Reid campaign.

But critics like Angle and other Republicans argue it's excessive.

"This is double taxation," Angle said. "This is being taxed one more time on wages and earnings that have already been taxed. That's just wrong, and it's un-American."

Travis Brady's grandfather opened the janitorial supply company in 1947. Brady is now president of the company, which grew to 725 employees after opening a hotel linen service 10 years ago.

"The value of this company is sitting in the assets," Brady said, speaking over the sound of huge washers and dryers whirring in the background. If his father died and the company was hit with a 55 percent estate tax, "that's potentially devastating for a business like ours."

The Reid campaign took delight in Angle's venue, noting Brady is doing booming laundry business thanks in part to the new CityCenter complex Reid helped save last year.

The senator called banks to urge them to continue financing the $8.5 billion project, which employs 10,000 people. CityCenter's Aria, Vdara and Mandarin hotels, which have thousands of rooms, are Brady customers.

"Sharron Angle's hypocrisy would be laughable if it wasn't so extreme," said Jon Summers, spokesman for the Reid campaign. "For her to attack Reid at a business that was strengthened because he saved CityCenter -- something she would not have done -- just goes to show how far out of touch Sharron Angle really is. While Angle says it's not her job to create jobs, Senator Reid is glad the facility she was in today is putting Nevadans to work because CityCenter was completed."

Angle has said she would not have called banks to use her influence if she had been senator, arguing that private projects must succeed on their own and that other casino-hotels might have lost business.

After the Brady event, Angle delivered the same free-market message to the Spring Mountain Republican Women's monthly lunch, where she spoke to a group of about 160. She asked members of the GOP group to spread the word and help her "retire Harry Reid."

"We've been working very hard to do something that will change the direction of our country," Angle told the gathering, saying lower taxes and less regulation will lead to economic recovery.

Angle won applause by slamming President Barack Obama for expanding government with initiatives such as the $787 billion stimulus package, bank and business bailouts and the new health care law.

"We see a fog so thick over Washington, D.C., that Barack Obama thinks it's a bright new day," Angle said. "I think what is happening there is he's got his brights on and they're bouncing off that fog, and that's why he thinks it's a bright new day."

Angle also took questions written on note cards by attendees. They included queries about how she plans to allow some workers to opt out of Social Security and open personal retirement accounts.

She told the women, many of whom were senior citizens, not to believe commercials from the Reid campaign that say she wants to kill the program. Instead, she said she wants to restore the $2.5 trillion Social Security Trust Fund that has been "raided" and ensure benefits to "keep our contract with seniors" who paid into the system.

Asked how she would counter the Reid campaign's efforts to "vilify" her, as the questioner put it, Angle said she would raise enough money to counter with her own TV ads. "I'm going to spend millions to tell the truth," Angle said.

Angle won the loudest applause when she answered the last written question asking why she would make a better senator for Nevada than the powerful Senate majority leader.

"I'm not Harry Reid," Angle said with a big smile.

Contact Laura Myers at lmyers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.

Trending topics:

• Aria
• Brady Industries
• CityCenter
• estate tax
• Harry Reid
• Laura Myers
• Mandarin
• Sharron Angle
• Vdara

Comments

Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.

1. rich23 Jul. 24, 2010 | 3:13 a.m. Report Abuse

   Even though I have NEVER agreed with Sharron Angle's viewpoints, at least I could respect her for being her own person. Now it seems she is just looking to be another puppet for the Republican Party.

2. renostarman Jul. 23, 2010 | 11:03 p.m. Report Abuse

   Before the teabaggers and Sarah Palin, a political candidate in this country could never even THINK about hiding from their own words or the press. The Sunday talk shows, 60 minutes,Newsweek, Time, etc would be mandatory. And guess what they could ACTUALLY answer questions! ALL you can say -FOR- Angle,-is that she's running against Reid. Thanks to the teabaggers instead of a legitimate GOP candidate who we independents could get behind; we got "chickens for checkups" and "Second amendment solutions", and "make lemonade from lemons". Women who have never given an interview in which they haven't embarrassed themselves or regretted afterwords. Baggers should be ashamed of the choice you have given us. Persons who think fluoride is a communist plot, who can't answer a legitimate question, who think that separation of church and state-one of the pillars that made America-America, is unconstitutional, do not deserve to run for dogcatcher in America. Let alone senator or vice president.

3. renostarman Jul. 23, 2010 | 11:01 p.m. Report Abuse

   If you baggers think we are going to you drag Nevada down to the level of South Carolinian politics without a fight; you are mistaken. We have only just begun to fight; and our side has an significant advantage-Truth! Truman said he didn't give Republican's "hell" he "just told the truth about them and it made them feel like they were in Hell".

4. renostarman Jul. 23, 2010 | 11:01 p.m. Report Abuse

   Dear poor tired teabaggers-I hope you have enjoyed your moment in the sun; frolicking around in you're revolutionary hats and carrying muskets and signs of Obama, and his family in Nazi uniforms. Many of you actually made it on TV bless your hearts. BUT YOUR 15 MINUTES ARE UP! By the time November gets here Angle will be ready to concede BEFORE the election. Rand Paul too. Americans do have short "sound bite" attention spans-but don't sell us to short-OUR MEMORIES AREN'T SHORT ENOUGH TO FORGET WHAT BUSH AND THE RIGHT-WING NEOCONS DID TO THIS COUNTRY. If you think we have forgotten that Obama inherited a job loss rate of 750,000 a month, you are mistaken; if you think we have forgotten Bush going to war by borrowing money from China so he could cut taxes for his "base" you are mistaken, if you think America has forgotten how insurance companies routinely dropped peoples health-coverage to keep a good bottom-line you are mistaken. By the time the election gets here and Veterans see what the Democrats have done for them, when seniors realize what the teaparty would do to SocSec. When HALF our population thinks about "making lemonade from lemons" with a rapist's child? when people come to realize that they can now breath a sign of relief not worrying about losing EVERYTHING if they get sick? I think this election is going to be a "slam dunk"(Bush's WMD war phrase,Oh ya we remember that too!). We remember what the GOP has done to our schools, we remember how the GOP wanted to keep our health-care on status quo, we remember how the GOP gave away the keys to big business, including the Supreme Court giving corporations the rights of a citizen so they can further corrupt our elections. We have SEEN the results of how they run government. AND WE REMEMBER!

5. krullom Jul. 23, 2010 | 7:58 p.m. Report Abuse

   A few more things:
   
   She sued Governor Guinn in 2003. Gov. Guinn was one of the best Governors in Nevada’s history. She is taking election money from the Tea Party Express who was recently ostracized for its racist comments which she hasn't denounced. Finally, the top representatives from the GOP (Mitch McConnell) won’t campaign for her because they consider her too extreme. She is an odious woman who is inexperienced and deficient in representing Nevada’s best interests in Washington.

6. steven.alexander Jul. 23, 2010 | 7:43 p.m. Report Abuse

   Has Crazy Angle denounced (or according to Sarah Palin "refutiated") her own PARTY, you know, the "Tea Party Express") the group she taking LOTS of money from, who wrote one of the most racist screeds ever to appear in print and whose leaders REFUSED to disavow? I know, I know, you hadn't hear a THING about that in the republican journal; read somewhere else. Now, it seems to me that if Sharon WAS NOT a racist, that she would have disowned the comments coming from the LEADERSHIP OF HER PARTY. Don't you think?

7. Gas Passer Jul. 23, 2010 | 7:08 p.m. Report Abuse

   How come Harry "Stinky" Reid doesn't know that regulations and taxes hurt economy? Is he too stupid to know that?

8. NVFisherman Jul. 23, 2010 | 6:33 p.m. Report Abuse

   It is funny to see all of the unemployed writers that are writing on behalf of Harry Reid. Most do not even live in Nevada. Who is kidding who? Go back to your jobs in LA or NYC as waiters. You are not fooling anyone.

9. renostarman Jul. 23, 2010 | 5:48 p.m. Report Abuse

   why don't you take a cue from middletoright and patrick they have scored points for your side all day without the personal attacks. don't you ever read your own posts? are you not embarrassed by your ineptness? you post like that and everything we believe the teaparty to be-is fact.

10. renostarman Jul. 23, 2010 | 5:41 p.m. Report Abuse

    Teufy you make such great points. We really have missed all your intelligent insights. We build aircraft carriers because of Huh? Most targets in Europe are out of carrier based aircraft range but other than that--
    We build carriers to project power, and we spend more than the rest of the world COMBINED because we ignored Dwight Eisenhower's parting warning about the military industrial complex, we cant live without it now. Defense industry corps. now sociopolitical engineer systems to be funding proof; the F-22 had parts made in 40 different states just to insure politicans in those states voted for its funding. Those same corps COULD be doing other things like curing cancer or making windmills but America has not learned to Not blow things up, and when we don't have a good reason to, we just make one up-ie WMD'S.

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