(Chuck Muth) – In light of the Raggio recall effort that got underway yesterday, some are questioning whether or not Sen. Raggio actually ever said “no new taxes” on the campaign trail in 2008. After all, no one has him on tape saying “now is not the time to talk about increasing taxes,” do we?
Actually, we have something even better.
His written words.
And his signature.
As Victor Joecks of the Nevada Policy Research Institute revealed on his blog last June, Sen. Raggio sent a long higher-ed love-letter to then-University Chancellor Jim Rogers on June 6, 2008. That was just a couple weeks after learning he had drawn a serious conservative GOP primary challenge from former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle.
Anyway, it’s Sen. Raggio’s closing paragraph in the letter which is most instructive….
“With our citizens facing higher costs, over $4.00 per gallon for fuel and higher costs for food and other necessities, businesses hurting, unemployment rising, this is not the time to talk about raising taxes. Sincerely, William J. Raggio.”
Stunning. Absolutely stunning.
Why? Because as I noted here yesterday, that same Sen. Raggio did a television interview with the same Jim Rogers just a couple weeks ago in which he said the following:
“When we were running for office in 2008 – legislative candidates, gubernatorial candidates – no one anticipated the kind of an economic problem we were going to be facing. Ah, it developed during that time. Nobody was talking about raising taxes, particularly when there was some downturn in the economy.”
So in June 2008, Sen. Raggio – in his own WRITTEN words – admitted that he knew the economy was in a crisis and declared, IN WRITING, no new taxes. We’re not reading his lips; we’re reading what he wrote. I mean, how does the man think he can wriggle out of THIS?
But it’s actually even worse.
If the economy in June 2008 was so bad at the time that “this is not the time to talk about raising taxes,” how in the hell does he justify raising taxes by more than a BILLION DOLLARS a year later when the economy was DOING EVEN WORSE?
The fact is, Sen. Raggio misled the voters of his district and the people of Nevada when he ran for re-election in the Republican Party primary in 2008 just to get re-elected. And once safely returned to office for another term, he went back on his word. It is not debatable. He can’t rationalize it. He can’t spin it. He can’t pretend it never happened.
All he can do now is stop admit it, apologize for it, and ask forgiveness.
And for the record – since I’m being told Sen. Raggio is accusing me of being behind this effort – I have had absolutely NOTHING to do with organizing this recall. But I highly encourage and support it.
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