Not that I go looking for conspiracies, but ...
Think about this. The BGE deregulation and the price freeze deal were worked out in 1999, the year after an election. At that time, the Democrats (who were in control of the Legislature, the Governorship, and the Public Service Commission) were no doubt thinking the Republican threat was waning. After all, Parris Glendening had just defeated Ellen Sauerbrey for the second time and by a wider margin than the first time. It's probably fair to say that when this deal was worked out, the Democrats almost certainly expected someone from their party to be Governor when the deal expired in 2006, which just happens to be an election year.
So, that means - if they thought it through - the 1999 Democrats were either
- setting up their future incumbent as the "fall guy" when the bills came due on the eve of an election, or
- setting up their future incumbent as the "hero" when he/she came to the rescue of the citizenry with a tough new deal on the eve of an election, or
- setting up the future legislature as teh "heroes" fro the same reasons, giving the legislative leadership the upper hand in dealing with - or running against - their future incumbent.
And when you throw in the fact that Kathleen Townsend was the Lt. Governor and likely front-runner in 1999 for the 2002 race - and thus the likely incumbent in 2006 - you can imagine all sorts of angles and conspiracies.
Of course, all of this is predicated on the 1999 Democrats thinking it through and not just pushing the problem off to a later date. Sadly, this is the most likely explanation.
The Local Tax in Maryland
Once upon a time (before tax year 1999) the way to calculate your local (county) tax on the Md. tax form was to multiply your state tax by a provided percentage. It was popularly known as the "piggy-back" tax. For the counties in the central part of the state, the percentage was generally 50%, although in the last few years some of the counties had upped it to 55%.
Starting in 1999, we were given a very small decimal number to multiply against the actual taxable income. Nice way to hide increases in the local tax - if you give them a small four-digit decimal rather than a two-digit percentage, fewer people will remember year-to-year what it was last year.
So, in honor of "tax day", I sat down and figure out how much the current local tax would look in piggy-back format. Using taxable incomes of 10-, 40, 70-, and 90-thousand dollars, I came up with the following percentages
- Anne Arundel: 60.4 - 54.5%
- Baltimore Co.: 66.7 - 60.3%
- Baltimore City: 71.9 - 65.0%
- Carroll: 71.9 - 65.0%
- Howard: 75.5 - 68.2%
- Montgomery: 75.5 - 68.2%
- Prince Georges: 75.5 - 68.2%
The surprising thing to me is that the local tax is actually regressive! The higher income the lower the tax percentage. This is almost shoking in a Democrat-controlled state like Maryland. I almost wonder if the Legislature knows about this. (And I hope no one tells them.)
Hey! That's my tax dollars your talking about!
The group called
Community Building In Howard County has announced that it is disbanding. I won't miss them, because I don't recall ever hearing of them before reading about them in
this article in the Baltimore Examiner. The only reason I bring this up is that in announcing the disbanding, thier VP, Jean Toomer charged the County Council with two things: fighting "hate bias" and establishing a staff position or a commission to "promote diversity."
Give me a break! The purpose of local government is to provide services that can the private sector can't readily provide, such as police, fire, and infrastructure. Fighting bias and promoting diversity are not in that group
because these are issues of thought and emotion!
NO government has any business telling people what to think or feel! The only government involvement in this area should be solving and prosecuting any crimes that
harm people or property - whether they are "hate crimes" or not.
If you want to persuade people to your way of thinking, do so with a private organization and keep your hands off of my tax dollars.
