Marta Mossburg

Marta Mossburg: If tax dollars bail out banks, why not investors?

In the name of creating jobs, large investors stuck with billions in a certain type of illiquid security known as student loan auction rate securities are lobbying the federal government to cash them out. This could be a $25 billion bailout for wayward banks who sold them worthless goods. Nine U.S. senators, two Democrats and seven Republicans, including Mark Warner, D-Va., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in October asking him to "examine the need to intervene in the market." They wrote that the result of banks reneging "on their promises as to the nature of these investment vehicles," was "dramatically reduced...

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Marta Mossburg: Pro-choice legislators or thugs?

A few weeks ago President Obama and members of his administration started a war against Fox News. They refused interview requests from the network, claiming it offered only opinion. The anti-Fox campaign elicited a plethora of commentary from those on all sides of the political spectrum in defense of the network. They argued that government favoritism can flip depending on who is in power; the American people are smart enough to decide for themselves which news outlets to trust; and that a free society depends on a free press treated equally under the law. The argument for impartiality is both noble and logical and should apply to how government treats all organizations, including...

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Marta Mossburg: Maryland should fear Bob McDonnell

Best thing that could happen to Maryland in the Virginia governor's race would be for Democrat Creigh Deeds to win. Let me explain. Deeds, like Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, believes government creates jobs. This worldview supports higher taxes to pay for more government in a never ending cycle of bigger government and fewer tax-generating jobs. And it eventually leads to tax increases, as it did in Maryland two years ago when the General Assembly raised income, corporate and sales taxes to fund a bigger budget. So, by bringing Virginia down, he would make Maryland, one of the highest-taxed states in the country, more attractive again as a place to locate a business and to live....

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Marta Mossburg: Keep government out of media

If Fox News is not news, according to the White House, then what is CBS' "60 Minutes"? If Sunday's lineup is an example, it's flirting with becoming Obama TV. It began its program with a piece on Medicare fraud - a worthy topic. But it's all about "perspective," as President Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said of Fox's reporting. Steve Kroft began the segment with, "Of all the problems facing the United States right now, none are more important than health care. President Obama says rising costs are driving huge federal budget deficits that imperil our future and that there is enough waste and fraud in the system to pay for health care reform if it were eliminated." Who says...

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Marta Mossburg: Union wins at taxpayers' expense in Maryland

Family child-care workers in Maryland beware. A union official will come knocking on your door soon. A collective bargaining agreement Gov. Martin O'Malley signed with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 500 last week gives the union broad access to the names, addresses - and ultimately the checkbooks of family child care providers who participate in the state's child care subsidy program. Gov. O'Malley described the first-ever collective bargaining agreement as a way to protect child-care workers. "The hard working professionals of SEIU are vital to the healthy future of so many Marylanders, and it's our obligation to ensure their rights as contracted workers...

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Marta Mossburg: Who knew Seinfeld's George Costanza was NAACP's model?

Remember the "The Fire" episode from Seinfeld? George Costanza shoves a senior citizen and children out of his way while fleeing a small kitchen fire at the apartment of his girlfriend. He justifies his behavior by claiming he was trying to lead the way. He explained that pushing others was necessary "Because, because as the leader, if I die, then all hope is lost." The show was funny. The fact that Marvin "Doc" Cheatham, president of the Baltimore Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and leaders of the state organization abide by George's morally bankrupt worldview is not. Cheatham introduced last weekend a resolution at a state meeting of the...

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Marta Mossburg: States aren't broke, they're on tax-and-spend binges

Figures from the U.S. Census Bureau on state tax revenue should force everyone to gasp - but not for the reasons most people think. They are not that bad. Let me say that again. They are not that bad, despite Armageddon-like pronouncements from governors and state budget chiefs around the country. "Revenues have come in below even the most pessimistic forecasts," said National Association of State Budget Officers Executive Director Scott D. Pattison in a statement in June. "Plunging revenues have caused the unraveling of state budget plans, continuing to force states to make painful decisions." Because of statements like this most people could be forgiven for thinking that states...

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Marta Mossburg: Legislators need financial literacy more than children

According to Maryland legislators, they are not to blame for the state's financial mess. It's the children! A group of Maryland legislators is supposed to release a report in December on steps to improve "financial literacy" in the state. They want to accomplish this by developing a voluntary K-12 curriculum for public schools and adopting standards to measure its success. A preliminary report released in December 2008 made the recommendations because, "The current nationwide financial crisis and the distress that it is causing millions of American families persuaded the task force that the need for all people to be financially literate is both compelling and urgent." While a noble...

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Marta Mossburg: ACORN lawsuit may be legal nightmare for filmmakers, distributor

ACORN's disrespect for the law is clear. James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles showed why in their series of undercover films. The videos document how employees of the community organizer in offices across the country were willing to help the pair, dressed as a pimp and prostitute, import underage girls from El Salvador for a brothel and subvert tax laws. The group's complaint filed last week in Baltimore City Circuit Court confirms their contempt for it. Instead of turning inward to clean house, it is attempting to sue those who exposed its fraud for taping conversations without consent in its Baltimore City office and injuring ACORN and its former employees' reputations. That's like Bill...

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Marta Mossburg: Virginia poised to take Maryland's business

For some people, "The road goes on forever and the party never ends," as Robert Earl Keen sings. But for government, the party is clearly over as tax revenues plummet across the country. Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley must cut about $1 billion from the current budget because of falling tax revenue. And the most recent economic outlook from the Board of Revenue Estimates shows the state expects less revenue next year than originally anticipated. O'Malley repeatedly stresses that things could be worse and are much worse in other states. According to Forbes, the governor is right. The magazine last week ranked Maryland 12th in its "Best States for Business" survey. It...

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Marta Mossburg: A honky-tonk view on health care

A 2004 article in the Policy Studies Journal by Texas A&M professor Kenneth Meier argued that country music resolves policy debates well before the intellectual or political community addresses them. "Get Your Tongue out of My Mouth 'Cause I'm Kissin' You Goodbye: The Politics of Ideas," (Vol. 32, No. 2) outlines how country music lyrics influence a broad range of policy, from criminal justice, to the environment, to government efficiency and family values. This may be news to some readers. And some of Meier's fellow political science professors disagree with his thesis. One claims Broadway musicals deserve the status accorded to country music by Meier, and another says TV is the...

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Marta Mossburg: Errors are inevitable with no transparency

A letter to the editor Monday by Maryland Secretary of Housing and Community Development Raymond Skinner said that I was wrong about state loans noted in a previous column and presented "highly inflammatory and grossly untrue charges." I apologize for the errors and for any harm done to the people who owned the properties mentioned in the Sept. 15 piece, "ACORN isn't the only organization fleecing taxpayers." But I do not apologize for investigating the loans DHCD extends to businesses through its Neighborhood BusinessWorks program. And I will continue to research the identities of the lucky few to receive subsidized loans at a time when taxpayers can least afford to...

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Marta Mossburg: Happiness is no metric for a country's success

French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants his country and every other country to drop financial outputs as the exclusive measure of success and start using citizens' well-being instead. This could be dismissed as a crazy idea spawned by a love-struck middle-aged man who drank too much Bordeaux one night while listening to his supermodel/pop-star wife strum love ballads in their palace. Or maybe it is an idea from the leader of country whose GDP depends on the Eiffel Tower and is desperately searching to become relevant again. But economists are promoting this ruse. And so is Bhutan. Bhutan is the tiny country wedged between China and India that enforces a dress code and restricts...

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Marta Mossburg: ACORN isn't the only organization fleecing taxpayers

Thanks to two intrepid young people, millions now know the counseling techniques of ACORN. They include thorough, friendly, and nuanced advice about how to evade tax laws and run a sex trafficking business with underage girls. The two Baltimore staff members of the community organizing group whose behavior was caught on video were fired. Good. But the more important issue is how to prevent an organization supported by taxpayer dollars from committing fraud in the first place. Transparency is the best solution. Right now, Maryland taxpayers don't have it. No one can find out which nonprofits or for-profit businesses receive taxpayer grants, how much, and how they use the money. State...

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Marta Mossburg: So much for transparency and the law

Who knew that laws passed by the Maryland General Assembly were merely suggestions? According to Gov. Martin O'Malley's office, the state will not follow a transparency law passed earlier this year by the General Assembly. The State Funding Accountability Act, HB 1192/SB556, would finally have brought oversight to the more than $900 million in taxpayer dollars given to nonprofit and for-profit groups each year to fulfill the state's work. To put that figure in perspective, it is enough to give every person living under the poverty line in Maryland a $2,000 check every year. O'Malley spokesman Shaun Adamec told The Examiner that budget cuts prevented building an online searchable...

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Marta Mossburg: Why Democrats lost the health care debate

Where were the crowds Tuesday evening? Where were the fans camping overnight to shake the hand of their rock star? That's when Wade Rathke, founder of Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, came to West Baltimore to promote his book, "Citizen Wealth: Winning the Campaign to Save Working Families." President Obama was a leadership trainer for ACORN, which champions "living wage" laws and unionizing Wal-Mart employees. Prosecutors around the country recently charged the group and its employees with wide-scale voter fraud in the 2008 election. When even the Bono of the community organizing world can only draw 30 people to the basement of SEIU 1199, something is wrong....

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Marta Mossburg: On lawyer fish and political speak

On Washington Island in northern Wisconsin, locals like their lawyers lightly battered, deep fried, and served on a grilled bun. The freshwater cod is allegedly so-named because of its thick slime and tendency to tightly encircle fishermen's arms when pulled from the water. My family's waitress last week at K.K. Fiske on the island said she thought the otherwise-named burbot was called a lawyer because its heart is located next to where it evacuates itself. Regardless, it is delicious. Some describe it as the "poor man's lobster." Islanders' trenchant and funny description of a predator fish speaks volumes about the difference between Americans and those who represent them in...

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Marta Mossburg: Maryland government is still flabby

To listen to Maryland House Speaker Michael Busch, the state is starving. "You're down to bone and gristle now when it comes to state government," the Democrat said in response to the $454 million cut from the current budget Wednesday by the Board of Public Works. The state has burned $736 million worth of flab from the $14 billion 2010 operating budget in the past two months. But the trims do not imperil big government in Maryland. And they resemble a series of bulimic purges more than any systemic dietary changes - meaning more rounds of cuts will be necessary to balance the budget in coming years. The 200 layoffs included in the decision are only .3 percent of the executive...

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Marta Mossburg: Dem donors fill list of O'Malley's business advisers

It would be refreshing to be able to take a politician at his or her word. But as George Orwell wrote in his 1946 essay, "Politics and the English Language": "Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." That is why it is difficult to believe Gov. Martin O'Malley's promise to support private investment in Maryland. He swore in 25 members to a revived Maryland Economic Development Commission for the sole purpose of seeing how to "support Maryland's business community." According to him, he selected...

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Marta Mossburg: Maryland legislators gone wild

At least Maryland is not New Jersey. The recent federal indictment of politicians across that state shows that government contracts there are up for sale to the highest bidder. They even hobnob with purveyors of illegal organs. Another bonus: Taxes there are even higher than in the Old Line State. And Maryland's landscape is beautiful. But politicians here still behave as if the rules of law and economics do not apply to them. Case one: The betrothal stunt pulled by Del. Jon Cardin, a Baltimore County Democrat and nephew of Democratic U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin. In case the story is not familiar, the younger Cardin commandeered on-duty Baltimore City police officers to stage a fake...

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Marta Mossburg: Fancy restaurants should not be on the government's menu

At a time when Gov. Martin O'Malley plans to cut $250 million for police, schools and roads throughout the state, why are taxpayers launching fancy restaurants, remodeling a luxury inn in Easton and launching a Bikram yoga studio in Takoma Park? According to data from the state Department of Housing and Community Development, Maryland taxpayers have loaned almost $12 million to high risk businesses including $500,000 to Caitec Corp. in Baltimore City, which offers a "complete selection of products for companion birds." Also on the list are restaurants, bakeries, catering businesses, and most famously, the now defunct Senator Theatre in Baltimore City which cost state and...

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Marta Mossburg: Tone deaf on taxes

Enough is enough. Before the dust settles on the $1.3 billion extra dollar bills flowing to the state treasury from tax increases foisted on taxpayers in 2007, lawmakers and others are grumbling for more. Among the proposals are squeaking out more funds from businesses recently hit with a corporate income tax hike and extending the sales tax to items purchased on the Internet. The U.S. Constitution prohibits the latter proposal. But the rule of law is but a quaint anachronism to crusaders intent on safeguarding their slice of the government pie. It is as if the state budget is the Bible and cutting it would be sacrilegious. For those who make their living from government -unions, state...

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Marta Mossburg: Gambling will grow government in Maryland

Look around. Take pictures. Record what Maryland looks like in the humid haze of August 2009, the last summer before slots. People are probably still outside sunning themselves at the beach. Or maybe they are running the sprinkler for their children in the backyard and barbequing. They do not yet have the opportunity to shutter themselves in the cool confines of windowless football fields filled with one-armed bandits, as they used to be known. The Anne Arundel County Council is doing its best to stall gambling's inevitable entrance. It has pushed to the fall debate about whether to rezone land next to Arundel Mills Mall for an entertainment megaplex with 4,750 slot machines...

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Marta Mossburg: Blame Baltimore's dole for Maryland deficit

Maryland could solve its $700 million budget gap right away: Cut Baltimore City from the dole. Ever-hungrier, the city keeps grabbing more from the state tax pie at the expense of roads and bridges and other projects throughout the state. It's like a metastasizing tumor making the whole of Maryland sick. State legislators would never be so bold to say that in public. Instead, Senate President Thomas V. "MikeÓ Miller Jr. and Speaker of the House Michael Busch late last month appointed a committee to study "state, county and municipal fiscal relationships,Ó with the goal of reviewing their "sustainability.Ó It's about time. For too long, state taxpayers...

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Marta Mossburg: Subsidies failed, and so will force-feeding health care

Dangling a carrot to small businesses to offer health care didn't work in Maryland. So the prospect of Congress forcing small employers to fund health care through a payroll tax sounds even less promising a route to covering the majority of America's work force. To understand why, it's worth looking at Maryland's program. Passed in the 2007 special session, the Working Families and Small Business Health Coverage Act anticipated insuring 15,000 new small business employees each year at a cost of about $30 million annually. Enrollment started last September of 2008. As of March, 150 employers had enrolled with 703 people covered. Why didn't this government solution work?: Because...

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Marta mossburg: Sick days cause chronic budget illness

Serving the people of Maryland must really damage the immune system of state workers. They are absent on average 2.3 weeks a year from illness, according to statistics from the state Department of Budget and Management. Some agencies foster a particularly unhealthy environment. Employees of the Department of Natural Resources were absent due to sickness an average of more than 140 hours per year or 3.5 weeks in 2007. Combined with their other leave time and holidays, DNR employees are off an average 11 weeks per year, all paid. Employees at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene were not very healthy, either. They averaged 102 hours off in 2007 due to sickness, or 2.6 weeks. And...

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Marta Mossburg: Pensions will sink state budget

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's latest round of budget cuts shows he is serious about bolstering his election chances, not about protecting taxpayers' future. Maryland needs to close an estimated $700 million shortfall in this fiscal year. But of the $280 million in preliminary cuts O'Malley suggested and the Board of Public Works last week approved, the vast majority of items were one offs. It's as if he went through his political closet and decided to toss the equivalent of a few sweat-stained band t-shirts, ripped jeans and outdated ties - all of which must be replaced. Stimulus funds will replace state dollars for Medicaid for the short-term. But a whopping bill will come due in...

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Marta Mossburg: Must unions always block innovation in public schools?

Isn't it ironic? When Andres Alonso moved to Baltimore City two years ago to turn around a failing public school system, the Baltimore Teachers Union fought him over practically everything except which color tie he should wear. Forget about radical items like merit pay. Marietta English, BTU president, called for his resignation because the union didn't want teachers to give up some individual planning time for group planning. Neither was the union enthused by his decision to move 300 people from school headquarters to schools or out of the system -- or to give more power to principals. But earlier this week English and a host of other "dignitaries" and a packed house of...

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Marta Mossburg: Speed cameras undermine civil society

Maryland lawmakers may not have technically raised taxes in the most recent legislative session. But by passing legislation earlier this year to allow speed cameras throughout the state, they made the Free State more of the Fee State. The legislation, which takes effect Oct. 1, also made Maryland a little less civilized. Adding speed cameras is like putting a video camera in the powder room to make sure guests wash their hands or banning overweight people from eating at fast-food restaurants. What if a body mass index machine blocked entrance to restaurants and scoring 25 or less was required to order a Big Mac? Would that be technology on the people's side? In the same way speed...

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Speed cameras undermine civil society

Maryland lawmakers may not have technically raised taxes in the most recent legislative session. But by passing legislation earlier this year to allow speed cameras throughout the state, they made the Free State more of the Fee State. The legislation, which takes effect October 1, also made Maryland a little less civilized. Adding speed cameras is like putting a video camera in the powder room to make sure guests wash their hands or banning overweight people from eating at fast food restaurants. What if a Body Mass Index machine blocked entrance to restaurants and scoring 25 or less was required to order a Big Mac? Would that be technology on the people’s side? In the same way...

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Marta Mossburg: A cautionary tale on spending state dollars on the arts

Giving money to arts groups may save some jobs today. But nonprofits by definition do not generate wealth, they redistribute it. So the decision by the federal government to give $900,000 to Maryland arts organizations in the name of stimulating the economy and saving a government-estimated 40-plus jobs defies common sense. It also primes state taxpayers to hand over more of their money to arts groups in coming years to again save those jobs when the federal dollars run out. A few fundamental questions should have been asked before granting the money. First, why choose arts organizations over homeless shelters or food kitchens? Or why not pick businesses, which create wealth and jobs?...

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Marta Mossburg explains why Maryland needs BOAST now more than ever

Maryland legislators could have prevented the closing of Towson Catholic High School this year. Leadership of the 87-old Baltimore County high school -- 40 percent of whose students are minorities and 45 percent of whom live in Baltimore City -- last week said the school would not reopen next year because of $650,000 deficit and declining enrollment. Some have called the school a victim of the recession -- $160,000 in tuition went unpaid last year. But the bigger culprit is inertia in Annapolis. For years, legislators have mulled tax credit legislation that would make millions more available each year to public and private schools and save the the state millions in the process. Called...

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Marta Mossburg on dollars to nowhere

Breaking up may be hard to do, as the old song goes. But wasting taxpayer money and committing fraud on the American people is pretty easy, according to government officials. At a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing Wednesday, the details were laid out. Robert Nabors, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, said that he knows of no instances where stimulus money has been withdrawn for any reason, including questionable legality. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Az.) asked Nabors why $800,000 directed to improve a runway at a Johnstown, Pa. airport named after Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) that only flies about 20 people to Washington each day had not been turned down since it...

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More health care is more expensive

While President Obama pushes for a nationalized health care “public option,” Maryland is busy making it happen without federal legislation. And so far the result is much higher costs for state and federal taxpayers footing the bill. In the November 2007 Special Session – with rumblings of a financial meltdown all around – state legislators passed a law to expand Medicaid coverage. The bill, SB6, reduced income limits for those eligible to receive assistance. Under the new law, a family of four with annual income of about $24,000 qualifies. That is 116 percent above the federal poverty level. At the time, the state estimated that about 27,000 new people would...

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Marta Mossburg on why state roads should not be left to the feds

Transportation. It's a boring and ugly word. Maybe that is why state legislators constantly neglect it. Some studies show that parents pay more attention to beautiful children, so maybe the same logic applies. But Maryland's elected and appointed officials ignore it at residents' great peril in years to come. Thanks to federal stimulus dollars, roads are being paved and bridges repaired throughout Maryland this year. In fact, a consortium of groups favoring mass transit praised Gov. Martin O'Malley earlier this week for focusing the first phase of federal stimulus dollars earmarked for road projects in the state, about $223 million, on maintaining existing highways and roads instead of...

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Marta Mossburg: Americans need a rule of law, not one of men

Men and women fail, often. It's inherent to humankind. That is why the rule of law is so important. That should be the take-away for each person who witnessed Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina admit last week to a tawdry and juvenile need to put self-fulfillment above all else. He was a man who until recently commanded great respect. An Eagle Scout, he made a fortune in real estate in South Carolina and then turned to a life of public service. He promised to be a citizen-legislator and fulfilled that pledge, leaving Congress after three terms, unlike so many colleagues who crave the power available only to those who spend decades in Washington. He not only decried government spending...

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Marta Mossburg: Cutting energy costs for a few means a higher tax bill for all

To save $300 per year for a few, taxpayers will lose millions under a new three-year $61 million state "weatherization" program spawned from the federal stimulus package. Gov. Martin O'Malley estimates that 6,800 low-income families will save $300 to $400 each year on their energy bills as a result of energy audits and home improvements paid for by the program. If 150 people are hired as a result of the program money as estimated by O'Malley, they will benefit too. But what about everyone else? How a short-term program that pays for one-off projects will spur long-term growth should be the bigger question. But since the state will spend the money, the government should at...

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Where are the stimulus jobs in Maryland?

Reporters and everyone else keep referring to the $787 billion aid package Congress passed in February and the other extra billions already flowing through the system as "stimulus" money. Everyone should stop. Only a small fraction of the dollars are being used to jump start the economy and to create new jobs. The vast majority of the estimated $4 billion coming to Maryland from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be used to prop up soon-to-be insoluble programs like Medicaid, pay pension benefits for state teachers that taxpayers cannot afford, extend food stamp benefits, prevent sexually transmitted diseases, and help the homeless, among other welfare...

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Cleaner government comes to Maryland

Vice President Joe Biden recently said, “we know some of this [stimulus] money is going to be wasted.” The FBI already said it expects massive fraud to arise from government bailouts and the billions flowing from Washington to the states, so does common sense, making Biden’s comments no revelation. But the acknowledgement makes clear that states must address the issue. And since halting government printing presses is not an option, transparency is the next best option. Most Americans will never be able to track how the money flowing to their states is used. But thanks to the State Funding Accountability Act (HB 1192) passed earlier this year, Maryland residents...

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Maryland mileage tax a no-go, for now

Speed cameras already monitor Marylanders’ driving habits. In coming years, the state government could also monitor where and how many miles each Marylander drives. A Maryland business group, the Greater Baltimore Committee, released a report last week outlining the pros and cons of taxing people by the mile, an idea making the rounds through state capitals around the nation. At first glance it sounds like a good idea. It even sounds market-oriented since those who use roads more would pay more. But it’s the least effective, most complicated and most civil-liberties’ violating means to raise more money for state transportation projects. First, as cigarette...

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Freedom is not always fun

There is no paradox in “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.” The fascinating new paper by economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers of the University of Pennsylvania makes it out to be, though. It explores why women’s overall sense of well-being has declined over the past 35 years in both absolute terms and relative to men. The main issue is why women – across races, continents and income brackets – should feel blue when so many educational and career opportunities opened to them during that time period and when birth control freed them from their uteruses and technology liberated them from much household drudgery. Feminists, or at least...

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Freeing KIPP to educate more students should be a Maryland priority

Color is one of the first things to greet visitors at KIPP Ujima Village Academy in Baltimore. Lots of it. Green and red and yellow murals with the names of African nations line the walls. They are bright, just like the 330 middle school students who attend. It is the highest performing public middle school in Baltimore City. And in 2006 and 2007, its students earned the highest 8th grade math scores in Maryland. Replicating their success should be a high priority for state legislators. But Maryland’s charter school law, passed in 2003, threatens to quash its growth and deny thousands of other low-income students across the state the opportunity to thrive under its...

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An open letter to Citicorp

Dear Citicorp Credit Services Inc.: Earlier this week I received a letter from you informing me that my credit line had been reduced by 88 percent. The new level is about the same as when I first signed up for a Citi MasterCard 14 years ago. At the time I barely exceeded the poverty level based on my fresh-from-college nonprofit salary. You explained your decision this way: “Your credit report indicates a substantial number of debts owed to other creditors.” This made me laugh. I always pay my balance in full. I also closed a credit card last month, which raised my credit score, and never requested, nor used, the huge line of credit you extended to me last fall while...

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It's not just millionaires fleeing Maryland taxes

Maryland’s “millionaires’ tax” flopped. It was doomed from the start. Anyone taking Economics 101 could have predicted that those best able to avoid Maryland’s new 6.25 percent marginal tax rate on income over $1 million would. They are the ones best able to choose where to live and to pay accountants and lawyers to lower their tax burden. Market losses no doubt contributed to one-third fewer people filing taxes in that income bracket in Maryland by April 15, as supporters of the legislation say. So did those filing extensions. But they and the Republicans yelling “I told you so” miss a bigger issue: Everyone is leaving Maryland, not just...

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Maryland legislators can make slots generate more money

Gov. Martin O’Malley and state legislators must stop fooling themselves. The rules governing how slots take root in Maryland doomed them from the start. The running of the 124th Preakness Stakes this weekend on a track owned by bankrupt Magna Entertainment Corp. is a perfect example of why. Slots were supposed to subsidize a downtrodden industry. But the opposite is true: Taxpayers are potentially on the hook for buying race tracks because promised revenue has all but evaporated. That’s why Marylanders need a do-over – or at least a partial one. Sending the constitutional amendment allowing slots back to the people is not worth the debate it would generate given...

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A path to relevance for the Maryland GOP

Click the welcome message on the Maryland GOP web site and this response pops up: “This domain has expired. Find out how to revive it today.” That’s a fittingly pathetic message for a party whose sway on state politics and culture is defined by its absence. When stopping speed cameras; railing against taxes; and ensuring that all U.S. flags flown in Maryland are made in America define your agenda, something is wrong. Granted, Republicans only hold 50 of 148 seats in the General Assembly. And there are more than twice as many registered Democrats than Republicans in the state. But this is a state that missed electing Republican Ellen Sauerbray to the...

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Make scholarships available to all DC children

“Hello, Pharoah, let my people go!” Invoking Moses, who demanded the release of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, D.C. Councilman Marion Barry demanded justice for Washington’s students from Congress at a rally for school choice Wednesday near the White House. He’s a man known for being on the wrong end of justice more frequently than an advocate for it. But he couldn’t be more right in his support for federally funded school vouchers for DC students, until Wednesday in jeopardy of being eliminated. Nor could his rhetoric be more apt – because school choice is no mere debate. It is about being given an education that makes D.C. students free...

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Maryland schools bureaucrats, 1, Children, 0

Howard County is no Baltimore City. Its public schools are some of the best in Maryland and the nation. So the fact that one child is being forced by the county school board and the State Board of Education to attend a lower-performing Columbia elementary school than the one his parents prefer is no big deal. Right? Wrong. The case of Timothy and Michelle Wood and their son Alex shows that a child will be sacrificed to the indecipherable goals of the system and that parents live at the mercy of the education bureaucracy. The Woods moved to Howard County in 2006 in large part so that their children could attend the county’s high performing public schools. They were excited...

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High cigarette taxes are not worth the consequences

Call it anecdotal. But why in the year following Maryland’s cigarette tax hike are the Comptroller’s agents on pace to arrest more than twice as many people for bootlegging them and seize four times as much contraband? Hmm. Could the extra $1 tacked on to the price of cigarettes last year have something to do with more illegal activity? State legislators won’t say. Neither will the Comptroller’s office speculate on the issue – his police officers just arrest people for violating the law. But the evidence points to the fact that higher cigarette taxes not only won’t generate anticipated revenue for the state but are fueling illicit behavior. Next...

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Maryland lawmakers should give College Park more independence, not more money

Soak the rich is the motto of many Maryland legislators. But through willful ignorance or hypocrisy, they subsidize a lot of rich college students attending state schools and their parents to the long-term detriment of taxpayers and learning. Freezing tuition is their method of choice. State legislators cut less than one percent from the University System of Maryland’s operating budget this year and paid for all of its capital projects, paving the way for its Board of Regents last week to freeze tuition for the fourth straight year. Far from holding costs down, the decision just shifts who pays more from students in this uber-wealthy state to taxpayers and provides no...

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As Baltimore goes, so goes Maryland

For years Marylanders have coddled Baltimore City. If the state were a business, Baltimore would be the perpetually underperforming, excuse-making, subsidized division run by the boss’s child. Until now, it’s been untouchable. That time needs to end if Maryland wants to revive its faltering economy. State unemployment is 6.9 percent -- the highest in 17 years, in large part because Baltimore keeps shedding jobs. From February 2008 to February 2009 the city lost almost 13,000 jobs, or 5 percent of its employed workforce. For this, the state will reward Baltimore because payments to local jurisdictions have little relation to what each contributes. Instead, the state...

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Tax scofflaws are bad -- state legislators are worse

Public shaming works -- ask Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot. He released last week a list of the top 50 tax individual and business tax scofflaws who owe an estimated $6 million to the state. According to Franchot, targeting the top offenders has netted $53 million for Maryland since 2000. He said at a news conference that he expects to collect two-thirds of the money owed from those on the list. The feds should follow his lead – as should the Obama administration, many of whose appointees and nominees did not pay back taxes until their selections were made public. But the offenses of those who fail to pay taxes are much smaller than those whom we elect to decide how to use...

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