When lawmakers return to Annapolis for a special session in 10 days, House Speaker Michael Busch said the onus would be on the Senate to take the initiative in passing Gov. Martin O?Malley?s deficit-busting tax plan.
In past years, the House has passed bills very much like what the governor is proposing, but “we?ve never gotten any out of the Senate,” Busch said. “We expect the Senate to initiate many of these items.”
“I think that?s a fair statement,” Senate President Thomas Mike Miller told The Examiner. But those bills are “going to stall again unless there?s compromise on both sides,” he said.
Miller promised to work to achieve “a fair and balanced plan [that] is as near as possible to the plan initiated by the governor.”
The Senate president, in his 21st year as presiding officer, pointed out, “Our members are not as prone to excessive taxes as are members of the House.”
Miller pushed O?Malley to tackle what is now projected to be a $1.7 billion deficit during the regular session earlier this year, and then pressed him for a special session to deal with the problem. Busch had persistently resisted the move.
But in most of its components, O?Malley?s plan is much like what Busch and his House colleagues have supported in the past.
These include a penny increase in thesales tax, doubling the cigarette tax, making the income tax more progressive, closing corporate loopholes and passing a version of slots gambling that O?Malley has taken as his model.
Miller supported none of these, and strongly objects to holding the referendum on slots that the governor seems prepared to embrace.
O?Malley has yet to submit any bills, but his legislative staff has said the tax proposals are very much like bills that have gone through the House.
Busch and Miller have agreed on procedures for the first week of the special session. It will convene at 8 p.m. Monday, and recess until Friday that week so the fiscal committees can hold joint hearings on the governor?s packages and any bills related to it sponsored by members.
“I don?t intend to initiate anything else in the special session,” Miller said. Busch has told his members that “legislation outside of the scope of the governor?s executive order will be assigned to the Rules Committee,” which typically kills non-germane bills.
Chief fiscal analyst Warren Deschenaux said Thursday that legislators have asked for 30 more bills to be drafted, but he could not disclose their subject matters.
