Robin Webb Unfamiliar With Her Pro-Tax Record
Weeks ago, the Kentucky Club for Growth submitted the following editorial to various newspapers in Northern Kentucky. Unsurprisingly, they were uninterested in a discussion about the candidate for Senate's actual record.
525 W. Fifth Street • Covington, KY 41011
Robin Webb Unfamiliar With Her Pro-Tax Record
On her website, State Representative Robin Webb's biography states: "As our next State Senator, Robin Webb will work in a bipartisan fashion to protect jobs, grow our economy and keep taxes low."
A radio ad she's running states: "Serving as State Representative, Robin Webb pushed to invest in education, improve roads, attract jobs, hold the line on taxes and stand up for working people."
Unfortunately, as often in politics, this is a gross fabrication.
The Kentucky Club for Growth is a non-partisan advocacy organization dedicated to economic freedom. We pay attention to our legislators in Frankfort and how they cast their votes on bills that affect property rights, taxes and spending. We pay close attention to these issues, and regret to inform you that, since our inception in 2006, Robin Webb has been a consistent supporter of increasing Kentucky's taxes and debt. We score legislators each year based only on the votes they cast and how those policies will affect your pocketbook. Here's a summary of her record on these issues over the past three years.
In 2007, Robin Webb voted to incur over $160 million in new debt over the Governor's veto (HB 1) and voted to allow local governments to seize your car if you were late on tax payments (HB 240). She voted against allowing the House to consider a repeal of the LLET, a tax small businesses must pay even if they lose money (HB 88). Out of 100 members of the Kentucky House, she ranked last in terms of protecting the taxpayer.
In 2008, she voted for a $148 million tax increase (HB 262). She also voted to create a new 2% tax that applied only to new jobs created in designated "development areas" (HB 611), and voted to take away a voter's right to have a referendum on a nickel property tax (HB 734).
As vice-chair of the House budget committee, she created and voted for the most indebted budget in the history of the commonwealth: a $200 million increase in debt versus the previous budget, over $1.1 billion in total debt (HB 406).
Additionally in 2008, she voted for new health insurance mandates that make insurance more expensive in Kentucky (HB 148). She voted to stop another commonsense bill that prohibited government classified employees from working political ballot initiatives while at work (House vote #543), which is an obvious misuse of public dollars.
In 2009, she voted for four new taxes and tax hikes. She voted twice to create new sales taxes on IT services (HB 347) and preemptively created a new tax on a technology that doesn't even exist in Kentucky (HB 236). She voted to raise the gas tax (HB 374) and for a $200 million tax increase (HB 144).
To her credit, she voted against a new Appalachian restaurant tax in 2008 (HB 635), but that's the only time in the last three years Webb has chosen to "hold the line on taxes." Her recent record is one of creating new taxes and unsustainable debt that will create pressure for more tax increases in the future.
Representative Webb's actions do not square with her words, and we at the Kentucky Club for Growth encourage you to ask her why.
