Some guy named John Ritter of Focus Property Group piped up at a Carson City news conference yesterday claiming the Nevada business community would support a billion dollar tax hike. According to Ed Vogel of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Ritter is “one of 13 business leaders named by legislators to a group charged with proposing solutions to the state’s budget problems.”
As you know, the Legislature is controlled by the Democrats – and if take a look at Mr. Ritter’s campaign donations, it’ll come as no surprise that this “business leader” is a dyed-in-the-wool liberal tax and spender. While he has given money to a few Republican candidates in recent years, he gives a LOT more to Democrats.
For example, CampaignMoney.com shows that in 2007 Ritter gave $15,000 to the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, but only $5,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. And he maxed out to Hillary Clinton last year without giving a dime to any of the GOP candidates.
Ritter also gave $26,700 in both 2005 and 2006 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, while giving just $1,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2005 and $1,500 to the Nevada Republican Party in 2006.
In the 2002 election cycle, Mr. Ritter didn’t contribute a penny to a single Republican candidate; however, he did cough up dough for Democrat candidates Walter Mondale, Bernie Sanders (actually, a Socialist), Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Pryor, Patrick Kennedy, Tom Harkin, Shelley Berkley, Dario Herrera (currently serving time in prison) and Harry Reid.
Pardon me, but I doubt seriously that Mr. Ritter’s opinion represents, let alone speaks for, the overall Nevada business community on this issue. If anything, he was speaking for the coward Democrats in the Legislature who want a billion dollars in higher taxes but haven’t yet screwed up the nerve to propose such a massive hike themselves.
