Bad Idea

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Don't penalize honesty Bill Shaikin Los Angeles Times Intent can be notoriously difficult to determine — unless, that is, a pitcher admits his intent, as Phillies left-hander Cole Hamels did. "Come see our headhunting pitchers" is not the best advertisement for baseball, so Hamels, like any other pitcher admitting intent, should have been suspended. The league already suspends pitchers deemed to throw at batters with intent, no matter what the pitcher says.

The muddle that is Maryland's budget future cleared a bit this week as the three most important people in cleaning up the mess edged closer to an agreement on how to do so. The mess, of course, was left by state lawmakers when they ended the 2012 legislative session April 9 without reaching an agreement on next year's budget. This week, Gov. Martin O'Malley, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch emerged from a morning meeting to reveal the outline of a solution, one that would involve two special legislative sessions for lawmakers, one to deal with the budget, the other to consider expanding casino gambling in Maryland.

Gov.Martin O'Malley's proposal for a 6 percent sales tax on gas is a bad idea. With the current 23.5 cents per gallon tax, consumers are already struggling to make ends meet. When a Maryland citizen doesn't have enough money to pay his bills, he is forced to cut his spending and adjust his budget. As steward of the public treasury, the same standard should be applied to our governor. Creating jobs can be accomplished not by raising taxes but by cutting taxes to make the environment more accommodating to the private sector.

Here's my take on the O'Malley-Miller gas tax: Gov. Martin O'Malley and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller had worked it out in a closed-door session that Mr. O'Malley would propose a 15-cent-a-gallon increase in the gas tax and Miller would knock it down to 10 cents. That way, everyone would feel good. But - hello? - where did that $1 billion in dedicated transportation taxes go? Answer: Both parties plundered the money for other projects. This is not about protecting Democratic or Republican turf; it's about the people you were elected to serve.

Hours before the 2012 General Assembly session started, Gov. Martin O'Malley dusted off the frustrating passivity he employed to such ill effect in 2011. Speaking to Marc Steiner in the radio host's annual pre-session show, Mr. O'Malley casually mentioned that if he had his "druthers," Maryland would avoid a lot of the cuts that will be necessitated by its current budget woes and would instead raise the sales tax by another penny. Not that he's actually proposing such a thing, he and aides hastily clarified later.

The extent of the financial liabilities of the Baltimore Grand Prix promoters is a continuing revelation, but let's face it: The race had "bad idea" written all over it from the beginning ("Papers say Grand Prix debts over $12 million," Dec. 8). Yes, the event generated some revenue for downtown hotels and restaurants, but has anyone calculated the cost to the environment? And what was the expense of tying up the downtown for months in advance and virtually shutting it down the first day of the race?

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake seems to think raising the container tax on soft drinks is creative ("Rawlings-Blake calls on council to adopt bottle tax hike," Nov. 14). Just keep taxing the average Joe out of Baltimore. Is that a really good plan? Here is a better idea. Eliminate deputy mayors, make developers pay property tax on what they build and eliminate the Baltimore Development Corporation. I am sure there is more cutting to be done, but these are some easy ways to reduce waste in government quickly without more taxes.

“Bylaw” - Dino-Murder, She Wrote. After a blessed reprieve thanks to the World Series, Fox's “Terra Nova” returned in full pre-historical force Monday night, with a new record: barely a minute into the hour before some poor soul became dino-lunch. Par for the course in Terra Nova; G.I. Joe Taylor makes the point that the settlement has lost many people since its beginnings, but this one is different. This Death-By-Dino is Dino-Murder. It's more of a crime of passion, really, as the soldier digesting in the raptor's stomach had the poor sense to carry on with a (married)

Aberdeen Mayor Mike Bennett's recent trip to Georgia to advocate on behalf of the Ripken organization as it tries to secure public financing of a stadium for a minor league ballclub in Augusta is one of the most ill-advised moves in his time in office. It wasn't a bad idea because the stadium in Aberdeen turned out to be a boondoggle. Quite the contrary, Ripken Stadium by itself has been a tremendous asset to the Aberdeen community and Harford County as a whole. In addition, the youth baseball complex and the Cal Ripken World Series have only increased the prestige of the city and the county and made them burgeoning baseball destinations for dedicated fans of the national pastime.