Murkowski: Tax Hike Would Cost Alaska 1,800 Jobs
Senator Votes Against Denali-Sized Job Threat on Alaska Small Businesses
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Lisa Murkowski today cast her vote to protect the nation’s struggling economy and not threaten 700,000 jobs nationwide. In back-to-back votes, she voted to extend the 2001/2003 tax cuts for one more year, and voted against raising taxes for some Americans, increase capital gains and dividend rates, and hike estate taxes from 35% to 55%, impacting many family-run businesses. She shared the following thoughts after the vote:
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“Today I joined many of my colleagues in voting to give Alaskan taxpayers – and the American economy – the certainty we need as the economy limps along by extending all of the expiring 2001/2003 tax provisions. There is bipartisan agreement in the Senate that we should not raise taxes during in the biggest economic recession since before Alaska statehood.
“This tax increase created by letting some of the 2001/2003 tax provisions expire would hurt the bottom line of more than half our country’s small business economy. The Alaska hit would be harmful, with an Ernst and Young study showing that if this bill passed, it would cost 1,800 Alaskan jobs – or the equivalent of handing everyone in the Denali Borough a pink slip. Last month, when Alaska typically adds seasonal jobs, our unemployment rate went up. We simply can’t afford to undercut our economy as Alaska’s jobless rate is on the rise.
“We need a comprehensive, bipartisan approach to tax reform, and I stand ready to work with my colleagues to get our country on a solid footing.”
To read the Ernst and Young study, click here. Attached as a PDF is the data table of how states’ economies would be impacted by raising taxes.
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