SUBMITTED RELEASE FROM FRIENDS FOR HARRY REID
This weekend, the Las Vegas Sun asked the question, “What has Reid done for Nevada lately?”
The answer? So much that even some Republicans are saying “nobody can deny what he has done for the state of Nevada.”
As the majority leader of the Senate, Reid is leveraging his position to ensure his home state isn’t left behind in the economic recovery, despite the failures of Carson City and the knee-jerk naysayers running for the GOP Senate nomination.
Facts are stubborn things. And the fact is that Reid is delivering for Nevada the way that no one else could:
• Bringing home more money than Nevada’s other four Washington lawmakers combined.
“Never mind that his haul from earmarks alone contributes almost $240 million a year to Nevada.…That’s more than eight times the annual state revenue from mining taxes or one-third its take in yearly gaming taxes.” Especially in a small state, these earmarks are crucial to rebuilding our infrastructure, bringing new clean energy projects on line, bolstering our homeland security and creating thousands of good paying jobs for Nevadans.
• The Sun article eviscerates Sue Lowden’s false claim that Nevada receives only 65 cents on the dollar. The fact is that “by 2008, Nevada brought in 97 cents for every $1 sent to Washington,” providing yet another example that no one delivers more than Reid.
• “Lowden’s campaign may be trying to have it both ways, saying at first Reid doesn’t bring home enough money and then saying she prefers tax cuts so less Nevada money goes to Washington in the first place.”
• Tilting federal funding formulas to benefit Nevada to get money Carson City would leave on the table.
Reid has “used his position as majority leader to change some formulas to Nevada’s benefit–often with a phone call or a pen stroke.”
• “Reid tweaked the federal Medicaid formula to get Nevada the largest percentage increase of any state–sending $450 million home.”
• “Reid upped the amount rural areas receive from Payment in Lieu of Taxes, or PILT, on undeveloped federal lands.”
• “Reid ensured that Nevada received the largest per capita allotment of foreclosure aid with $1.5 billion for five hard-hit states in a new housing rescue program.…Nevada will receive more than $100 million.”
• Reid “inserted into the stimulus bill a massive prize for his home state–$3.2 for an obscure Western federal power agency, which is now providing low-interest government loans to finance Nevada’s first north-south electrical transmission line.” This new clean energy transmission line will run from White Pine to Clark County, creating 400 new construction jobs and thousands more as clean energy projects are developed to get clean energy to market.
