Posted on 03/31/2004 10:46:53 AM PST by cogitator
Excerpts:
"Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. promised yesterday to find the money to pay for a landmark $1.3 billion education package even if the state legislature kills his plan to expand legalized gambling, though he warned that health care and other programs would suffer deep cuts instead." . . .
"The time for being subtle has passed. [Having slots] is the majority view in the state of Maryland, clearly," Ehrlich told the crowd, which was assembled in part by lobbyists for the Maryland Jockey Club, which would be a major beneficiary of the governor's slots bill. "If the bill dies in that committee, we lost. The state lost. The taxpayers lost. The racing industry lost. Organized labor lost. . . . We need to get it done."
In a legislative hearing room, however, Ehrlich was greeted with skepticism from Democrats who questioned whether his plan to legalize slots at three horse-racing tracks and three other sites would raise enough money to solve the state's financial problems. Ehrlich's gambling bill is projected to generate about $800 million annually, but it would take several years for the slot parlors to become fully operational. Maryland could face a budget shortfall of almost $1 billion a year from now.
"This seems to be a comprehensive solution for horse racing, not education," said Del. Anne R. Kaiser ( D-Montgomery)." . . .
"Without slots, Ehrlich and his budget secretary, Chip DiPaula Jr., said the administration would be forced to reduce spending by $500 million to $600 million annually. Health care programs and aid to local governments would bear the brunt of the cuts, they said."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This is said like it's a bad thing.
There's something to be said for charisma; it got him elected in an very non-Republican, non-conservative state. I admire Governor Ehrlich's anti-tax stance in the face of the pressure from the Democrats to increase taxes. The problem is, he said during the campaign that he'd fund the Thornton Plan (expecting that he'd have no problem getting the slots plan approved to provide revenue for it). Now, with the slots still uncertain, he's facing some hard choices.
Well, that would depend on what the local governments have to cut if they don't get money from the state. They usually target essential services like schools, libraries, law enforcement, environmental regulation, etc. for maximum "pain" value. Look at California and Oregon for examples of what gets cut (Oregon can't open new prisons that have already been built because they can't hire and pay new guards -- at least that's what they say).
React in the form of cutting school and environmental regulatory funding? Not a chance, they react by hiking local property taxes.
I'm in Montgomery County MD. My property tax bill is 30% higher than it was two years ago, and is looking to increase another 50% over the next two years.
Isn't that due to a higher assessment, primarily? (I.e., is your bill going up because of a higher tax rate, or a higher assessment at the existing rate, or both?) I read that one strategy of local governments strapped for cash is to increase the pace or re-assessments; apparently this is a strategy that Northern Virginia locales have pursued aggressively because property values are going up so fast.
Reassessments are still every 3 years, but over the last two assessments my appraised value has gone from a fairly conservative estimate in 1998 to being about 25% over fairmarket value now.
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