Tax Dollars

I am troubled by the assumption of PlanMaryland opponents that they have an inalienable and eternal right to our tax dollars to support their high maintenance and energy consumption lifestyle. The purpose of the PlanMaryland legislation, like smart growth before it, is to withhold state funding for bad choices about how and where to live made by local government. If they persist in turning cornfields into vinyl McMansions, they shouldn't do it on my tax dollars. It's bad enough that any corporate functionary should get a mortgage interest deduction for living in a house with a profligate carbon footprint and commute on roads newly built on some of the best farmland on the planet.

I would like Gov.Martin O'Malleyto explain why citizens who no longer have pension plans or retiree medical and prescription benefits through their employers are forced to continue to pay for state employee pensions and retiree health coverage. We should be able to use the tax dollars currently directed toward these generous state employee benefit programs to save for our own retirement just as state employees should be saving for their own retirement. Marilyn Lewis

I would like Gov.Martin O'Malleyto explain why citizens who no longer have pension plans or retiree medical and prescription benefits through their employers are forced to continue to pay for state employee pensions and retiree health coverage. We should be able to use the tax dollars currently directed toward these generous state employee benefit programs to save for our own retirement just as state employees should be saving for their own retirement. Marilyn Lewis

It seems that hardly a month goes by that I'm not hearing of great new ideas from Annapolis on how to raise new revenue with higher taxes. Gas tax, cigarette tax, flush tax, and on and on. The citizens of this state have nothing left to give. What I never seem to hear from anyone in state government is how they are going to trim costs, for example, by eliminating individuals or departments that have long outlived their usefulness. One obvious candidate would be the Maryland Transportation Authority Police.

Rather than fighting to save Baltimore's Poe House museum ( "Twain House director: Poe House can be saved," Feb. 12), a better way to remember the author's homes is to compile a book about them; after all, he only lived at the Poe House in Baltimore for three years. There must be a dozen other residences he enjoyed; Philadelphia claims him too. At a time when there are not enough funds for classroom supplies, we should be slow to remove any property from the real estate tax base; we are a city of churches, all of which are exempt from property taxes.

Want to know how to cut costs in state government? How to trim the bureaucracy? How to stop the waste of tax dollars? Pick up a copy of the final report from the Butta commission on efficiency and economy in government. It doesn't cover everything, but this report shows how hundreds of millions of tax dollars could be saved every year.Commission chairman J. Henry Butta deserves credit for achieving in a little over one year an easy-to-use laundry list of steps that can be taken right away to start saving money.

Editor's note: Red and white lanterns will brighten many Main Streetin many Carroll County communities this holiday season. And most of the time, taxpayers are footing the bill. In Union Bridge, for example, the Town Council -- meeting in an illegally closed session -- voted to spend $7,857 to purchase and install lights; officials had budgeted $20,000. Other examples include Westminster spending $3,200 and Taneytown, $2,899. Electricity costs are additional. The American Civil Liberties Union says towns should not spend money celebrating a religious holiday.

It's income-tax time again, Americans: Time to gather up those receipts, get out those tax forms, sharpen up that pencil, and stab yourself in the aorta.No, seriously, contrary to what many so-called "people" say, doing your income taxes is not difficult, as long as you're willing to take the time to read the instructions carefully and make up numbers out of thin air. I'll have some helpful tax-preparation advice later in the column, but first it's time for a patriotic message on the topic of: Why You Should Pay Your Taxes.

Red-and-white lanterns will brighten many Main Streets in many Carroll County communities this holiday season. And most of the time, taxpayers are footing the bill.In Union Bridge, for example, the TownCouncil -- meeting in an illegally closed session -- voted to spend $7,857 to purchase and install lights; officials had budgeted $20,000. Other examples include Westminster spending $3,200 and Taneytown, $2,899. Electricity costs are additional.The American Civil Liberties Union says towns should not spend money celebrating a religious holiday.

ATLANTA - The case of the White House and the Salvation Army is a one-stop example of just about everything that is wrong with President Bush's proposition of sluicing tax dollars to charities run by religions. Mind you, first, that the president's plan for bankrolling so-called faith-based charity isn't even necessary. The established charitable-choice program allows for federal funding of pretty much the same charitable work, with the sponsoring churches or other religious organizations required only to make basic and non-onerous gestures to separate their social and religious ministries.

I read that the proposal to subsidize the property taxes of developers and others who "build green" has passed. However, our community newspaper has never reported on how the shortfall in county income will be made up. Thanks for pointing out that we taxpayers have already coughed up half a million bucks to developers. I would also like to know why our council thought it was OK for we property tax payers to subsidize commercial developers with said half a million dollars.

Two recent letters to the editor got my juices flowing again. In the first letter, J. Rodney Little, director of the Maryland Historic Trust, heaps praise on his primary benefactor and funding source, Gov. Martin O'Malley, for distributing my tax dollars to his organization so the trust can re-distribute my wealth to private developers (and no doubt pay his salary). Immediately below Mr. Little's drivel was a whine from George Frazier, in which he bemoans the City Council's rejection of a tax break for urban farmers.

A panel on growth and wastewater treatment recently recommended tripling the Bay Restoration Fee - known as the "flush tax" - between now and 2015. Good idea. It would raise more than $145 million a year for the Chesapeake Bay. And with a price tag of more than $10 billion on Maryland's Watershed Implementation Plan, we need it. But before we ask residents for another $5 a month, we need to be sure that the money we have now, and the additional money we will have in the future, will be well spent.

I am troubled by the assumption of PlanMaryland opponents that they have an inalienable and eternal right to our tax dollars to support their high maintenance and energy consumption lifestyle. The purpose of the PlanMaryland legislation, like smart growth before it, is to withhold state funding for bad choices about how and where to live made by local government. If they persist in turning cornfields into vinyl McMansions, they shouldn't do it on my tax dollars. It's bad enough that any corporate functionary should get a mortgage interest deduction for living in a house with a profligate carbon footprint and commute on roads newly built on some of the best farmland on the planet.

Kudos to elected officials and the Stoneleigh community for deciding to make the "180-day field trip" move to the Carver Center for the Arts and Technology. This plan begs the question — why are we spending taxpayer dollars to update and expand the already overcrowded, antiquated Stoneleigh Elementary School? If Carver solves the problem and can accommodate more students, shouldn't Baltimore County taxpayers keep Stoneleigh students at this new location … permanently? Who knows what the total cost is to taxpayers for not only the Stoneleigh addition, but also the relocation of students back to this facility?

Who among us believes that sprawl - that is, the destruction of farms, forests and other open spaces to accommodate far-flung development coupled with the neglect and abandonment of older neighborhoods and urban centers - is a cost-effect, environmental-friendly and ultimately sound strategy for future growth in Maryland? If you are raising your hand right now, you may well be sitting in the Pikesville Hilton where the Carroll County Board of Commissioners are today hosting a "summit" attacking Gov. Martin O'Malley's PlanMaryland initiative.

One of the U.S. Senate's most aggressive watchdogs said Thursday he has begun an inquiry into Baltimore's public housing agency, after receiving calls and emails concerning "a wide range of allegations, including possible conflicts of interest, fraud, waste and abuse of taxpayers' monies. " Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, requested reams of documents from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees housing authorities around the country and steers millions of dollars a year to Baltimore.

On Thursday, Aug 4. my wife and I joined about 200 other people for a hearing in the county's George Howard Building. The subject was a study and proposed land acquisition for a road spur from the west side of Route 108 in Clarksville to Auto Drive in Clarksville. The proposal is a very poor solution to a problem that may or may not exist. The impact of the proposal on businesses and property owners affected is intolerable. It is difficult to see how or why the Howard County planning people would waste their time and county funds on an unnecessary study to reach an unsatisfactory conclusion.