Raise Taxes

Citizens to legislators: Raise taxes and stop slashing state programs.That's the clear message from Marylanders surveyed in The Sun Poll."People are seeing the state of Maryland going down the tubes," said John Gregory, a 48-year-old Perry Hall Middle School math teacher who was among the poll's respondents. "To prevent that from happening, I'd be willing to have them take a little more and get us going in the right direction."Despite pressures brought on by the recession, two-thirds of the poll's respondents said they would rather see the General Assembly adopt a combination of budget cuts and tax increases than try to balance the budget exclusively through deep cuts in government spending.

I have been reading numerous articles on how the transportation budget has been drastically declining, and the proposal is to raise the federal tax per gallon of gasoline. The premise is that with more fuel efficient vehicles on the road, those vehicles use less gas therefore pay less taxes while causing the same amount of damage to infrastructure. My question to The Sun would be: How are you evaluating those conditions? We may have more fuel efficient vehicles, yes, we also have many more vehicles today than in 1956 ( "The toll on U.S. roads," May 14)

The man who would make Maryland taxes fairer -- and, yes, raise them -- found himself on the edge of the economic and social precipice last week.He was driving onto the College Park campus of the University of Maryland to deliver a lecture. He saw students demonstrating and teachers declaiming. He heard them denouncing the budget cuts -- $40 million in two years at an institution that had been earmarked for massive budget increases.R. Robert Linowes, chairman of a commission that studied Maryland's tax structure and recommended a massive overhaul, found himself in agreement with the demonstrators.

I got a big kick out of reading the fawning testimonial for Gov. Martin O'Malley written by Sen. Jim Rosapepe ( "O'Malley's record is strong," Jan. 23). It was almost like our dear governor wrote it himself because it was so much like the State of the State speech Governor O'Malley delivered in Annapolis the same day. And talk about praise. Senator Rosapepe states we are No. 1 in this, No. 1 in that, best in the nation in something else and on and on. But my favorite line was how Governor O' Malley has "managed the state through the tough times and cleaned up the fiscal mess he inherited from the previous administration.

Two measures to raise taxes on cigarettes are heading for the General Assembly.One would boost Maryland's cigarette tax rate from the sixth lowest in the country to the sixth highest. That bill, expected to be introduced next week, would raise the state tax on cigarettes by 20 cents a pack, to 33 cents.The other measure would extend the state's 5 percent sales tax to cigarettes, which could add up to a dime a pack.House Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell Jr., an outspoken critic of new taxes, said he would consider supporting the 20-cent tax increase if someone can demonstrate the need for new revenues.

From: Jean McGrathBel AirNot property taxes. As a senior citizen on fixed retirement income, the continued increase in property tax can soon mean we will no longer be able to keep our home.Since we bought our home, the assessment has increased to five times its purchase price, and our property tax has gone to 10 times the original tax bill, while our income inretirement is 60 percent of our working income. There should be a more equitable tax that would include all residents and not just property owners.

The Board of Estimates approved a $2.08 billion budget for fiscal 1993 yesterday that doesn't raise taxes and requires city employees to go a second straight year without cost-of-living wage increases.The spending plan, which is virtually unchanged from the budget unveiled by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke last month, now goes to an eager City Council for review."There are a number of issues that we want to look at," said Council President Mary Pat Clarke. "We want to take a look at the tax rate and see if there are ways to honor our commitment to chip the nickels away."

No one called it dead on arrival. But even supporters of a landmark proposal to restructure Maryland's tax system were pessimistic about its recommendations to increase and expand the sales tax, raise taxes on higher incomes and redistribute millions of dollars to Baltimore and poor, rural counties."

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, whose re-election prospects have been severely damaged by a deal he made with Congress in 1990 to raise taxes, now says he's sorry he did it.In a series of interviews on the eve of yesterday's primaries, the president called breaking his "no new taxes" pledge "a mistake" because it has caused him so much "political flak" and because it has not stopped Democratic lawmakers from seeking further tax increases.White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater insisted there was no coordinated plan to have the president disavow the 1990 budget deal at a time when so many Republican voters have indicated they are angry with him for breaking his major campaign promise of 1988.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton appears ready to raise taxes on energy in the least visible way -- through a less-conspicuous levy on the heat content of fuel instead of an easy-to-spot sales tax at the gasoline pump.As part of his effort to spread the energy tax burden as broadly, thinly and evenly as possible, Mr. Clinton's evolving plan is now centered on a proposal that would raise taxes on most forms of fuel, including coal, oil and natural gas, on the basis of British Thermal Units (BTUs)

In Baltimore County, like much of Maryland, tax revenues have flat-lined. State aid for such things as road resurfacing is not much better. County workers won't be receiving cost-of-living increases for the fifth year in a row. Yet amid all this austerity, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz last week proposed a budget that finances new schools and retrofits many others with air conditioning. There are millions of dollars for new school security systems, for a new family resource center on the east side of the county and for new technology for police.

Article 6 of the Maryland Constitution, which senators and delegates swear to uphold, states that all persons invested with the legislative or executive powers of government are accountable for their conduct. Whenever the ends of government are perverted, the authors point out, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought, to reform the old, or establish a new government; the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

With three weeks left in the General Assembly session, Gov. Martin O'Malley and legislative leaders have begun the painstaking process of rounding up the votes to raise taxes on gasoline — a move so unpopular it hasn't been done here since 1992. The measure is what lawmakers call a "heavy lift," a vote that could come back to haunt them at the polls. O'Malley has been talking to senators and delegates one on one and in groups, trying to nail down support for a proposal that would add an estimated 9 cents to the price of a gallon of gas by 2014.

Once again, Virginia has beaten Maryland to the punch regarding taxes on business and consumers. Virginia eliminated its gas tax completely and replaced it with a 3.5 percent sales tax on the wholesale price of gasoline. Gov. Martin O'Malley's new tax increase proposal would reduce the gas tax rate 5 cents but add a sales tax to the retail price of gasoline and diesel, resulting in a 63 percent increase in the tax on gas and a 90 percent increase in the diesel tax. Only in Maryland would we claim to "reduce" taxes in a way that results in increases - and leaves Maryland retailers at a devastating competitive disadvantage.

It looks as if the administration and the lame-duck Congress are hell-bent on increasing taxes on "the rich," and we should all care about that because the U.S. already has such a levy: It's called the Alternative Minimum Tax. It was put in place in 1969 to catch a handful of rich folks who were not paying their "fair share. " But next year, thanks to bracket creep, the AMT will snare as many as 20 million middle-class Americans as well. Is that fair? That's how "tax the rich" works.

Grotech Ventures will be the first venture capital firm to invest in Maryland startup companies using $12 million in state money as part of the InvestMaryland program, state economic development officials said Wednesday. The firm was selected based on its history of investing in Maryland companies and its overall track record, said Maryland Venture Fund Authority Chairman Peter Greenleaf, who is also CEO of Gaithersburg pharmaceutical research giant MedImmune. Grotech was once based in Timonium and maintains an administrative office in Hunt Valley, along with its Northern Virginia headquarters.

ANNAPOLIS -- The Senate narrowly voted to raise taxes by $245 million yesterday in an action that fit the classic definition of a compromise: It made no one happy.Senators who voted yesterday, and the delegates who will be on the tax hot seat next, complained the tax plan was too big, or too small, or taxed the wrong things.The $245 million tax package was approved 26-20, just two votes more than the 24 required for passage.It would expand the state's 5 percent sales tax to cover a variety of products and services not now taxed -- everything from snack foods to dry cleaning to massage parlors to pay-per-view TV. It also would raise taxes on cigarettes by a dime a pack and increase by 50 percent the current taxes on wine, beer and liquor.

ANNAPOLIS -- A bill to restructure Maryland's unemployment insurance tax system and charge an immediate $61 million in additional taxes passed the Senate yesterday nearly unchanged from the version that passed the House two weeks ago.The 38-7 vote in favor of the legislation, written with the help of the Schaefer administration, virtually assures that the bill will become law this year.The higher taxes are needed, proponents of the measure argued, because the recession has depleted the state's unemployment insurance trust fund.

Dan Rodricks ' column, "Voting to give more money to millionaires," (Oct. 21) was right on point. While middle class wages have remained stagnant over the last 20 years, the top 2 percent have seen their incomes triple (with both groups adjusted for inflation). Republicans say higher taxes on the wealthy kill jobs. In 2001, George W. Bush spearheaded the largest tax reduction in U.S. history (overwhelmingly benefiting our wealthiest citizens) and unemployment rates quickly spiked higher and have remained nearly double the Clinton era levels to this day. When were the golden years of U.S. full employment?

At $2 per pack, Maryland has one of the highest cigarette taxes in the nation - and has reaped considerable benefits from it. With every tobacco tax increase over the last 13 years, smoking rates in the state have declined, not only among children but with adults, too. That's not only been good for the budget - the cigarette tax accounts for nearly $400 million in revenue annually for the state or 90 percent of all the tobacco- and alcohol-related taxes...