New Hampshire Republican Senate nominee Kelly Ayotte has based her campaign on an anti-government zeal and a promise to “take a hatchet to spending” (despite her embrace of budget-busting policies). But when it comes to constructive ideas about the nation’s high unemployment, Ayotte made it clear during a debate last week that she has no solutions.

When asked what specific bills she would sponsor in order to reduce unemployment, Ayotte simply reiterated her support for extending all of the Bush tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year:

The last thing we should be doing right now is raising taxes, but that’s what Congressman Hodes wants to do. When he talks about letting those tax cuts expire, let’s call it for what it is: it’s keeping tax rates stable at a time when we are facing a very difficult challenge nationally. And those taxes impact 750,000 small businesses in this country, half the business income in this country, and employ 25 percent of the workers in this country. So I’ll tell you how we create a positive climate: lower taxes on our small businesses.

Watch it:

First, Ayotte’s stat regarding half of small business income is flat-out wrong, and the 750,000 number she cited is only valid if you consider Bechtel and the Tribune Company to be small businesses. Second, Ayotte fails to mention that her desired job creation plan will cost nearly $4 trillion over the next decade, including $830 billion to pay for the tax cuts for the richest two percent of Americans alone.

But most importantly, Ayotte’s proposal is obviously nothing new, and we already know that it falls flat as a job creation step. According to the Congressional Budget Office, extending the Bush tax cuts provides just 10 to 40 cents in economic activity for every dollar spent. “A permanent extension [of the Bush tax cuts] would entail large revenue losses after the recovery is over, so its effects on output and employment in the next few years per dollar of total budgetary cost would be much lower” than other tax and spending policies, CBO said.

In fact, as Josh Picker found, following the Bush tax cuts, the country “registered the weakest jobs and income growth in the post-war period”:

Overall monthly job growth was the worst of any cycle since at least February 1945, and household income growth was negative for the first cycle since tracking began in 1967. Women reversed employment gains of previous cycles. And for African Americans, the worst job growth on record was matched by an unprecedented increase in poverty.

Extending the Bush tax cuts will definitely further the Republican goal of having marginal tax rates for the rich be as low as possible, but the only thing such a move will create from a federal policy perspective is a bigger deficit.

On Election Day, voters in Indiana will cast their ballots for or against enshrining a property tax cap in their state constitution. The cap — which would hold property tax increases to one percent for residential homes, two percent for rental properties and farms, and three percent for businesses — is already being implemented by the legislature, but the amendment would make it much harder to alter the cap down the road.

As the Wall Street Journal reported today, the amendment is receiving the enthusiastic support of Indiana’s governor, Mitch Daniels (R):

Gov. Mitch Daniels, a Republican considered a potential presidential candidate in 2012, has been campaigning in favor of the amendment. Otherwise, he said in an interview, it will be too tempting for lawmakers to raise tax rates. “Human nature and the bureaucratic instinct for self-preservation very rarely reform, absent some pressure to do so,” Mr. Daniels said.

Daniels has been relatively reasonable when it comes to taxation recently, acknowledging in an interview with Newsweek that tax increases may have to be part of the nation’s budget solutions (which they do). But back in his home state, he is supporting a regressive tax cap that is going to do a lot for wealthy homeowners, but not much for anyone else.

The amendment is being sold as one that will benefit all Indiana residents. But as the Indiana Institute for Working Families pointed out, that’s not true:

Indiana homeowners benefit from a variety of generous property tax breaks that disqualify many Hoosiers from being eligible for the tax caps, including a $45,000 homestead deduction and 35% deduction on home values up to $645,000. Those fortunate Hoosiers with homes worth more than $645,000 also receive an additional 25% deduction on the remaining value of their home. These deductions dramatically reduce the property taxes paid by most Hoosiers, and do so in a way that makes the most expensive homes more likely to be eligible for the caps. For example, after factoring in the benefit of the homestead deductions and applying a fairly typical 2% tax rate, a home valued at $125,200 would receive no benefit from the caps, while a home worth $1 million would receive over $3,000 in benefits!

Plus, as Citizens for Tax Justice pointed out, “since some of the cost of these recent changes to the property tax was offset by a regressive sales tax increase, renters and lower-income homeowners can expect to pay more in taxes overall.”

In addition to bestowing an unwarranted tax break on the wealthy, the caps will force already cash-strapped municipalities to make further cuts. For instance, “mayors and city-council members across the state also have blamed the caps for forcing them to cut library hours and bus routes, and to lay off police officers and firefighters.” A report from Indiana’s nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency said “cities and towns lost almost 10% of their potential total tax levies this year because of the caps.”