(Maryland) Senate Panel's Plan to Raise More Revenue Upsets Ehrlich

Washington Post ^ | March 13, 2004 | Lori Montgomery

[cogitator]

Ehrlich's budget secretary, Chip DiPaula Jr., said the governor is displeased with the committee's revenue package, particularly its decision to revive the "snack tax," which was eliminated in 1997. DiPaula said the levy amounts to a sales tax, and Ehrlich has vowed not to raise taxes on either sales or income. ...

Budget committee Chairman Ulysses Currie (D-Prince George's) argued that the panel has repeatedly honored the governor's revenue requests by avoiding major tax increases and by approving Ehrlich's proposal to legalize slot machine gambling for two years running. The governor, Currie suggested, should at least consider the committee's proposal. ...

Though Ehrlich campaigned on a pledge to rein in spending, his budget proposal would have trimmed just $86 million from expected increases in existing programs, according to legislative analysts. ... The Senate budget committee cut further, eliminating an additional $156 million in anticipated state spending, cuts Currie described as "nips and tucks."

[cogitator]

Well, it's a good idea to tax snacks made with Olestra, because then it's a tax on snacks AND gas.

[JTG]

I think Olestra is dangerous. I know it's less fattening and stuff, but I would never eat it.

[JTG]

The legislators in Maryland love two things: gun control and taxes. Maryland has one of the biggest tax burdens in the country and some of the strictest gun control laws. The crime rate in Baltimore is just ridiculous, and it's partly because CCW permits are so hard to get there.

[Kenny Bunk]

Writing to you tonight from Hagerstown, MD.

Weirdly divided state. Baltimore simply overwhelms the rest of the real people of beautiful MD with its numbers. The only reason Ehrlich (Look in Dictionary under "RINO") is in, is that Ashcroft flooded Baltimore with agents to make sure the exuberant Democrats of that fair city were only voting once on election day, not creating mounds of phony absentee ballots, and were actually alive. Ashcroft, ever sensitive to having been robbed in Missouri, did the same thing for St. Louis.

Result? two Republican wins. There's a lesson in here somewhere which the RNC is studiously ignoring.

I.E.,WO a straight vote, we lose many states.

[zygoat]

I also live in Hagerstown. It is somewhat disappointing to realize that most people consider all of Maryland to be as liberal as Baltimore and Montgomery County. If the feds are going to be watching the polling places in the next election cycle, perhaps legal ballots can turn this blue state red. However, I'm not going to hold my breath.

[cogitator]

Baltimore simply overwhelms the rest of the real people of beautiful MD

I notice you included Montgomery in your next post, but don't forget Prince George's County. PG County is the major reason that the Thornton plan passed (partly due to the voter cap on real estate taxes in that county, which means that the county can't raise enough money on its own to have "parity" with the richer counties in terms of education).

We do see the world differently from the "mountains" of Maryland (I'm in Braddock Heights).

[Kenny Bunk]

I am a mere part-time MD resident, staying here in your beautiful foothills when duty calls me to the sink of iniquity that passes for the nation's capital. Baltimore and DC indeed have much in common, and anyone wishing to give DC any kind of anti-constitutional voting or representational rights is cordially invited to visit Baltimore, where if they have half the brain God gave a wood duck, they would soon see the error of their ways.

Congress ought to do its duty and run DC, starting with the schools and the police. It, and Baltimore, could easily give Port-au-Prince a run for its disorder dollar.

[Torbiecat]

(partly due to the voter cap on real estate taxes in that county But with a tax, no one would buy the $700,000 and $800,000 houses they're building down 450. There has to be some incentive to move here--it certainly ain't the school system.