NEWS
March 31, 2014
Living near Baltimore County's Eastern Sanitary Landfill is no doubt unpleasant. The facility is huge - 375 acres - and handles about a quarter of Baltimore County's solid waste, or almost 75,000 tons of trash a year. Residents of the neighborhoods adjacent to it complain of unpredictable odors that substantially diminish their enjoyment of their property. But a proposal pending in the General Assembly to allow for property tax breaks for the affected communities is the wrong approach.
NEWS
Dan Rodricks | March 27, 2014
If you needed proof of the political class' abiding support of the ruling class over the working class, look no further than the purportedly left-leaning blue state of Maryland, with a Democratic-dominated legislature throwing millions of dollars at the heirs of millionaires while hesitating about raising the wages of some of the poorest people in the state. With relative haste and limited debate, the state Senate, led by the well-to-do attorney and grandfather who serves as its president, voted 36-10 last week to raise the exemption on the Maryland estate tax, essentially creating a windfall for some of the wealthiest people in one of the wealthiest states in a country with an ever-widening wealth gap. If Gov. Martin O'Malley signs it into law, the measure would raise the amount of an estate exempt from Maryland's tax from $1 million to nearly $6 million.
NEWS
March 19, 2014
When Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake prepared her first city budget in 2010, she had to find a way to resolve a projected $190 deficit. In 2011, she faced another shortfall, this time $65 million. In 2012, the projected deficit was $48 million. Last year, it was $30 million. But now, for the first time since she took office, Mayor Rawlings-Blake is proposing a spending plan that includes no cuts to city services. Instead, it offers city workers a 2 percent raise - a far cry from the furloughs they experienced not long ago - and includes modest investments in a handful of priorities while continuing a long-term plan to cut property tax rates for homeowners.
NEWS
February 9, 2014
The last mayoral election in Baltimore featured a spirited debate about a variety of ideas for aggressive reductions in the city's sky-high property tax rate. The winning candidate, though, was the one who called those ideas unrealistic and advocated a gradualist approach that left the basic structure of the city's property tax system intact. To her credit, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has followed through and proposed a comprehensive 10-year financial plan to reduce costs, diversify revenue streams and cut property taxes.
NEWS
By Cal Thomas | October 8, 2013
With frustration building over Washington's refusal to behave in the public interest, perhaps it's worth noting a drastic solution tried by the Irish. Last Friday, Irish voters cast ballots on a referendum to abolish the country's Upper House, known as the Seanad. Prime Minister Enda Kenny said Ireland didn't need all of its politicians and they should be made to suffer along with everyone else as the country continues to struggle economically. The measure to abolish the Seanad lost by just 42,500 votes out of more than 1,226,000 cast (51.8 percent to 48.2 percent)
NEWS
By Scott Calvert, The Baltimore Sun | September 27, 2013
Baltimore has underbilled a downtown office tower owned by Orioles majority owner Peter G. Angelos by $390,000 in property taxes since 2011, government officials say - the most recent example of mistakes emerging from the city's Finance Department. Kevin Harris, a spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, called the billing on One Charles Center an isolated error. But a sampling of tax records shows that the city has also undercharged the owners of two other commercial properties by more than $300,000 in the past four years because of similar errors.