Perrysburg, OH – Angela Zimmann, challenger to incumbent Bob Latta for Ohio’s newly competitive Fifth U.S. Congressional District, criticized Congressman Latta’s voting history on tax issues, describing his record as dangerous to the welfare of Northwest Ohio’s working middle class families.
“My opponent talks about being a champion of lowering taxes on the middle class, but time after time Congressman Latta has voted against legislation that would give working families relief and create more jobs in Northwest Ohio,” Zimmann said.
Zimmann’s remarks come shortly after her campaign released a video of Congressman Latta speaking to a group of constituents earlier this summer. In the video, Latta tells a group of seniors, “You know, the best tax out there is one you pay and I don’t.”
Congressman Latta has a history of obstructing legislation that reduces taxes on middle class families while giving significant tax breaks to large corporations, including those that ship jobs overseas. Latta voted against:
- Extending and increasing tax credits to first-time homebuyers [2009; Roll Call 46]
- Tax provisions that closed a $7B offshore tax haven loophole [2010; Roll Call 182]
- Eliminating $11.6B in tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas [2010; Roll Call 514]
- Quadrupling tax deductions for small business start up costs, making it more difficult for aspiring business owners to create new business and new jobs [2011; Roll Call 277]
- Creating deeper cuts to payroll taxes paid for by millionaires [2011, Roll Call 922]
Meanwhile, Latta voted twice in favor of the Ryan Budget, once again supporting a radically conservative tax plan that gives favorable tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent of Americans at the expense of middle class families.
Latta’s pro-corporations, anti-middle class tax record extends back to his years in the Ohio Legislature, where he voted in favor of a 2003 sales tax increase under Republican Gov. Bob Taft’s budget proposal – a tax increase dubbed by the Columbus Dispatch as Ohio’s largest tax and spending increase in the state’s history.
This vote came less than three months after Latta voted to increase the state gas tax 27 percent, again weighing down middle class families with higher tax burdens.
The Zimmann campaign’s latest video release comes shortly after a Census Bureau report indicating that income levels for the wealthiest 20 percent of households rose last year while all households in the middle saw incomes decrease. As a result, the household income gap between America’s wealthiest and middle class families continues to widen.
