Residents of Montgomery, Fairfax, Alexandria, Arlington, the District and Prince George’s counties can look forward to either paying higher taxes or seeing a reduction of local services, thanks to the vote Tuesday by Reps. Tom Davis, R-Va.; Jim Moran, D-Va.; Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Frank Wolf, R-Va.; and Al Wynn, D-Md., for the $1.5 billion federal bailout of Metro pushed by the Fairfax congressman.
Interestingly, here’s what we heard when we asked the five congressmen which local taxes they support increasing or local services they believe should be reduced to pay the local jurisdictions’ matching shares of what amounts to an unfunded mandate:
» Davis: “It’s up to the localities. There’s no need to raise local taxes.”
» Moran: “It’s up to the legislature to handle and does notnecessarily mean a tax increase.”
» Wynn: “I would not presuppose how Maryland will come up with [dedicated funds]. It’s up to the legislature, the governor and the secretary of transportation. They have a fairly wide range of options.”
» Wolf: “Up to the local governing bodies to decide.”
» Van Hollen: “There’s an argument whether Maryland already has a dedicated funding source. The Maryland Transportation Trust Fund makes regular payments to Metro; we think what Maryland is doing now already qualifies. The proposal is more for Virginia counties which pay [Metro subsidies] year to year.”
Note carefully what each of these gentlemen would not say — the phrase “dedicated funding source” is political double-talk for “tax.” We suppose there may be a parallel universe somewhere in which local jurisdictions would say no to $1.5 billion in new federal money for Metro and thus avoid hiking local levies or cutting services. The reality is area officials won’t be able to decline the federal money and thus will indeed have to make the tough choice. In effect, what the congressmen are saying to county and city leaders about this coming dilemma is, “Hey, that’s your problem.”
The Davis proposal is part of a congressional appropriation bill that still has a ways to go in Congress before it goes to the president. The odds are not good that President Bush — the first chief executive in modern history to not veto a single bill until his sixth year in office — will say no to the spending bill containing the Davis proposal.
So when local authorities throughout the region start making decisions about how they are going to pay their share of this $1.5 billion bailout — called by the Maryland Public Policy Institute “the biggest earmark in history” — perhaps they will invite Davis, Moran, Wolf, Wynn and Van Hollen to attend the signing ceremonies. After all, we’re sure they will want to take credit for the consequences of their votes.
