Well, you can say one good thing about last week's special session of the Maryland General Assembly -- at least it's over. There was no mystery about what the Legislature was up to: raising taxes and shifting the cost of teacher pensions to the counties ($6.4 million is the estimated cost for Frederick County), but still, the whole thing reeks.The most significant increase, worth $250 million or thereabouts, was on the income tax rate of individual earners of $100,000 or more, and joint filers worth $150,000 or greater annually. Those hikes on top earners makes Maryland seventh-highest in the country for income tax rates.
That, in itself, we don't find too objectionable. Let's be honest: Those earning above $100,000 in this economy -- about 14 percent of the population -- can afford an extra few hundred. Fewer people in Frederick County are as likely to be affected as in, say, Montgomery or other more affluent counties.
What is objectionable, outrageous even, is the systemic financial problem Maryland's state lawmakers have. No, we're not talking about the structural deficit, where the state spends millions more than it takes in. What we mean is the governor and General Assembly's pathological inability to reform its budgetary system in any meaningful way, and their propensity to go back again and again to the taxpayers' well.
Lawmakers are nickeling and diming taxpayers to death through increased taxes and fees on just about anything they can get their hands on.
Take, for example, the new taxes on cigarillos and smokeless tobacco (under the auspices of "public health"). Even rainwater will be taxed under legislation that will require counties to create fees to retrofit storm drains and control water runoff. If you live in a house that uses a septic system, the annual fee you pay just doubled -- and that's no matter how much you flush.
The only major reductions in the budget are to the list of exemptions you can claim when you file your tax return.
Despite the populist rhetoric about not hurting the middle class or poorer Marylanders, the state's lawmakers have clearly demonstrated an appetite for even more regressive taxes than the ones on income. First it was the additional penny on the sales tax, bringing it to 6 cents a few years ago. This session, Gov. Martin was pushing hard for that sales tax to be applied to gasoline -- when he wasn't preening in front of the national media, that is. It's hard to think of a tax more regressive, one even less palatable than the original plan, a straight 15 cents more a gallon with phased-in increases tied to inflation. We're glad O'Malley was rebuffed by his own party, although only for now. We fully expect to see that proposal back again next year. The Democratic majority only conceded that the gas tax was too much to stomach in combination with the other fees and taxes the governor had proposed; they didn't rule it out entirely. Clearly, they aren't done.
|
