New Taxes

Maryland's public colleges and universities would receive substantial increases in sorely needed aid under a pair of relief plans. One of the plans calls for an increase in utility taxes and the other could result in an increase in the gasoline tax.The two plans -- which would earmark new funds for four-year schools and community colleges -- yesterday quickly received the endorsement of the Maryland Higher Education Commission.But a skeptical Gov. William Donald Schaefer said today the state's budget problems cannot be solved by focusing on particulars.

When Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. unveiled his budget proposal in January, he stacked in front of him the three fat volumes from his first spending proposal, their covers printed in red, the color accountants use to indicate debt. Next to them were three noticeably slimmer volumes from the final proposal of his term. This time, the covers were black. Ehrlich usually isn't so subtle in making his point.

WASHINGTON -- Like other hard-core, tax-cutting Republicans, President Bush has long declared that the government should keep its hands away from the people's money -- whenever possible, at least. So Bush caught some of his usual supporters off-guard this week by proposing a budget that asks some individuals and businesses to pony up $16 billion in additional fees to the government over five years. The wide range of targets includes war veterans, visa applicants, poultry producers and drug companies.

ANNAPOLIS -- The Senate approved its version of Gov. William Donald Schaefer's $11.6 billion 1992 budget yesterday, and members of both houses prepare to resolve differences between their proposals.Already, battle lines are being drawn over the different proposed tax increases the Senate and House of Delegates used to balance their budget proposals. Both houses have made millions of dollars in funding to state-supported local programs contingent on their different taxing proposals.Those differences will be worked out next week by a select conference committee of House and Senate legislators.

Howard County Executive James N. Robey told a Chamber of Commerce lunch crowd yesterday that he will provide money for higher teacher salaries and more police and firefighters next year, but he won't raise income or property taxes, including the fire tax. "Our economic good fortune continues this year," Robey told the group at a Columbia hotel. "I have the pleasure of serving as executive during the time of a robust national economy that seems like it will never end. Capital gains are growing by astonishing amounts."

OCEAN CITY -- Gov. Martin O'Malley announced yesterday that he will seek a major infusion of transportation funds next year, an indication that he will propose more new taxes than the minimum needed to eliminate the state's projected $1.5 billion budget shortfall. The governor offered no specifics of how much he would seek to raise or how he would do it, though higher gasoline taxes are a likely possibility. Local leaders gathered here for the Maryland Association of Counties warmly embraced O'Malley's commitment, saying they suffer from years of under-investment in roads and mass transit, leading to some of the longest commuting times in the nation.

Looking warily to the 1998 elections, Democratic leaders in the House of Delegates tried yesterday to generate legislative momentum for tax relief with a new plan to cut the income tax by 10 percent over three years.The tax cut proposal -- designed to bridge broad policy differences within the legislature's majority party -- would be balanced in part by new taxes on many telecommunications services.After intense behind-the-scenes negotiations the past several days, House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. unveiled the omnibus tax bill and convened a special meeting of the 100 Democrats in the House to discuss it and to press for party unity.

Baltimore households would have to spend about $52 more a year in new energy sales taxes under a plan by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke to offset a projected multimillion-dollar shortfall in the city's budget next year.Schmoke wants each city household to pay a 4 percent energy sales tax -- a levy on residential use of natural gas, electricity, steam, fuel oil and other fuels. He also wants to place a 2 percent energy tax on nonprofit organizations and an 8 percent tax on manufacturers.The new taxes -- which would be the first broad-based tax increase under Schmoke -- would help balance the mayor's $2.3 billion budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Schmoke's plan will be presented today to the Board of Estimates, a panel of five top city officials.

What a wonderful, if hypocritical and misleading, opinion by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who continues to be as truthful and upfront with the American people as her boss is about Benghazi ("Health care reform is cutting costs, improving care," March 20). Some of the more egregious prevarications that are now becoming evident and seeing the light of day: If you like your doctor, you can keep him. By driving your doctor out of practice or out of Medicare, he'll not be there for you to keep.

Washington. -- President Clinton propagandizes against the rich, depriving them of legitimacy, and the Democrats are willing to violate the law to punish them. The Democrats have singled out ''the rich'' and the dead for unconstitutional retroactive taxation and are legislating this prohibited act.Clinton's tax increase, misleadingly termed a deficit-reduction plan, is a blatant assault on Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution, which explicitly forbids retroactive law. Moreover, it is contemptuous of all legal precedent.