Bottle tax wrong answer for Baltimore

The Baltimore Sun and its editorial board are as guilty of scare-mongering as it says the opponents of the proposed Baltimore City Bottle Tax are in its editorial of April 29 ("Bottle tax scare"). Your words are as much of a disservice to the community as the anti-tax ads.

I have no dog in this fight. I live in Baltimore County and work in Baltimore County. Yet, when the local paper takes the standard liberal view, it offends me to no end. When talking about the budget cuts that may be required if this tax is not passed, the editorial board resorts to the standard untouchable third rails of local politics: police, fire, roads and the children. Pity the poor children whose rec centers we will have to close if there is not a tax increase.

What the editorial fails to address is fiscal responsibility and bloat in the administration of city programs and bureaucracy. Why must it be the worker bees who must suffer cuts to cover the excesses of their leaders? Until we get this bloat under control, the city can raise all the taxes it wants, and the bureaucracy will devour those new revenues as a ravenous cancer does to a healthy body

Until the elected officials stop believing they can build their empires and use the public treasury as their own piggy bank, we will never break the cycle of needing to increase revenues.

Bob Bloomberg, Pikesville