Tax Plan

There's a right way and a wrong way to have a debate about taxes in this country. This week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid demonstrated how not to accomplish that task with his claim that Mitt Romney didn't pay any federal income taxes over a 10-year period. The problem is that the Nevada Democrat offered absolutely no proof of this and said he was informed of it by "an extremely credible source" but not the White House. We don't know whom Mr. Reid might regard as highly credible - whether his barber or an IRS agent - but the episode smacked of the kind of McCarthyism that Democrats have so often derided when it comes from Republicans.

Two of the more memorable observations to come out of Mitt Romney during the first presidential debate had to do with fibs and Big Bird. The candidate said that as the father of sons, he knows that repeating a lie doesn't make it true. As to the latter? Look out, "Sesame Street," your days as a "victim" on the federal dole are numbered. The two seemingly unrelated remarks are worth mentioning because they intersect in Mr. Romney's tax and budget plans which, even by the most generous of interpretations, don't add up. If President Barack Obama failed in the debate, it was in not making that point strongly enough.

Local charities and foundations are keeping a brave posture in the face of President Bush's attempts to repeal the federal estate tax -- even though it could cut deeply into their donations. Officials at area universities, hospitals, charities and churches -- many of whom rely on donations from well-to-do donors -- seem unfazed by the possible tax cut. Some say they support the repeal, arguing it would help, not hurt, philanthropy because donors would have more money to give. But that logic runs counter to at least one national study on the impact of repealing the estate tax, which says that it could reduce total national giving by as much as a third.

The Maryland House of Delegates narrowly approved a $670 million sales- and income-tax package last night that ranks among the largest in state history, but Democrats leading the effort failed to garner enough votes to overturn a veto promised by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Adoption of the tax plan came on a 75-65 vote just four days after it was introduced by House Speaker Michael E. Busch, a Democrat who opposes the Republican Ehrlich's initiative to...

Maryland's General Assembly failed to pass a balanced budget, according to a memo obtained by The Baltimore Sun. Enacting a balanced budget is the legislature's primary constitutional requirement. "The [fiscal year] 2013 budget is nearly $70 million out of balance," wrote Budget Secretary T. Eloise Foster in a memo to all of Gov. Martin O'Malley's Cabinet secretaries. She recommended that the governor not sign any legislation that reduces revenues "until the imbalance is addressed.

Having failed miserably to pass a balanced budget by last Monday's constitutional deadline, the Maryland General Assembly may be hard-pressed to meet a second, equally important deadline: passage of a budget and tax plan before the legal sine die adjournment of the 90-day session next Monday evening. Such a failure could set in motion a "doomsday" scenario leading to huge reductions in state and local services and the dismantling of entire state agencies.The longer that senators and delegates procrastinate in finding a solution, the more likely it is that the "doomsday" budget of Gov. William Donald Schaefer will actually be implemented.

Former President Bill Clinton told a sold-out crowd in Baltimore on Tuesday that he is confident Washington will work quickly through the nation's looming fiscal crisis after the election despite predictions that partisanship will continue to leave the federal government gridlocked next year. "Some of you may be worried about this fiscal cliff - don't be, yet," Clinton said of the combination of across-the-board spending cuts and tax increases scheduled to take effect automatically at the end of the year.

The gas tax plan unveiled this week by Gov. Martin O'Malley and the General Assembly's top leaders is a complicated proposal that wouldn't represent our first choice in how best to pay for Maryland's transportation needs. But, on balance, it's a better-than-expected solution to a problem that has been nagging the State House for two decades. Better than expected because efforts to increase the gas tax have been practically dead on arrival in Annapolis for years, thanks to high prices at the pump and public hostility toward anything that might raise them further - even as alternatives like vehicle registration and licensing fees hit Marylanders harder than a few pennies on the gallon would.

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans removed a major stumbling block to their $190 billion tax-cut plan yesterday after GOP leaders agreed to make tax reductions conditional on passing a budget that would eliminate the deficit by 2002."

Don't get R. Robert Linowes wrong -- he doesn't dislike th wealthy.After all, he lives in a house with a swimming pool in tony Chevy Chase, vacations in Puerto Rico during the winter, drives expensive cars and pulls in a sizable income as a founding partner of a law firm with a half-dozen offices.So why is he, of all people, so eager for Maryland to raise income taxes for wealthier people and to adopt a smattering of other new taxes that, he contends, will hit folks like him the hardest?"I'm positive it's the right thing to do," he replies, as if the answer were perfectly obvious.