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 the money Marylanders send to Annapolis.
Maryland’s tax offenders owe $6 million. That is .04 percent of the $13.8 billion 2010 operating budget. They should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law as there is a “direct connection” between tax avoidance and a lack of services, as Franchot said.
But state legislators are sticking Maryland taxpayers with a much bigger bill — $1.1 billion for bond-financed projects – many of which could hardly be construed as core state duties, including $1 million for a design of a new business school complex for Morgan State University, where less than 100 full-time MBA students are enrolled.
Fifteen million goes to pure pork — subsidizing failing museums, new museums that will never be able to pay for themselves, favorite charities, a “therapeutic” pool, memorials, a private religious school and other non-essential items. Taxpayers are fortunate that the full $34 million requested for the individual projects did not make it.
But the main questions should be why any of them were funded in the first place. And who is holding legislators accountable for these projects?
Maybe some of the newly unemployed pushing the state’s jobless numbers to the highest in 16 years might want to adopt the project of outing legislators. Franchot blamed tax scofflaws for bearing the burden of making some classrooms in Prince George’s County look like “something out of Appalachia.”
If his accusation is true of tax scofflaws, how much more true is it of legislators who abuse the public trust by taking taxpayer dollars to benefit very narrow special interests?
For a full list of legislators’ pet projects, go to mlis.state.md.us
, scroll down to the “Bill Information and Status” section and click on the bond bill link.
Here are some of the projects funded:
** $5,000,000 for a National Children’s Museum, no sponsors listed.
** $350,000 for a “therapeutic pool for people with disabilities” courtesy of Sen. Joan Carter Conway and Del. Maggie McIntosh.
**$250,000 for North Beach Boardwalk in Calvert County courtesy of Sen. President Thomas V. Mike Miller and Del. Sue Kullen.
**$150,000 for the former Ellicott City Post Office courtesy of the Howard County delegation.
**$175,000 for the Poolesville Skate Park courtesy of Sen. Robert Garagiola and Del. Craig Rice.
**$125,000 for Cedar Lane Apartment Renovations in St. Mary’s County courtesy of Sen. Roy Dyson and Del. John Wood.
** $45,000 to Aleph Bet Jewish Day School from the Anne Arundel County delegation.
Whether these projects are worthy endeavors is not the question – who should pay for them is the issue. The answer should be private donors or local jurisdictions. As noted in previous columns, many state legislators sit on the boards of organizations they help to fund with taxpayer dollars.
Nowhere on the legislation are their affiliations noted and many groups receive help repeatedly without having to prove they used the money wisely and without meeting fundraising matching requirements, allegedly a stipulation for state dollars.
Government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers in the charitable arena – which it is essentially doing by funding some nonprofits and not others. And at a time when Maryland taxpayers face massive deficits in coming years, how can legislators justify spending money on pet projects that could be used toward roads and schools and other essential state obligations?
State legislators should stop funding individual bond requests in coming years. At the very least they should have the courage to publicly list their connections to charities they support with taxpayer donations. If not, taxpayers should do it for them on a searchable Web site. Thank you, Comptroller Franchot, for the idea.
Examiner columnist Marta H. Mossburg is a senior fellow at The Maryland Public Policy Institute.
