O’Malley equates paying taxes to patriotism

The good news is that Maryland Senate actually cut a tax. The bad news is that they raised income taxes on some people to “pay” for the cut. (Washington Post link)

The Maryland Senate voted 30 to 17 last night to repeal the state’s new tax on computer services and offset the lost revenue with a three-year surcharge on the income of millionaires as well as cuts to transportation projects and state agencies.

With the House of Delegates expected to follow suit in coming days, the action almost guaranteed that Maryland’s “tech tax” would come off the books before it was to take effect in July.

So to “offset” their revenue losses, Maryland has decided to put an additional 6.25% income tax increase on folks with over a million dollars of income every year. Now, I see every tax increase (with no attempt to rein in spending) as a personal affront. Someone is losing out, somewhere. It’s $62,500 that could be some other American’s wages for gardening or laundering for the person who makes a million bucks every year. That’s at least one less job in Maryland for every millionaire hit with the tax.

But Governor O’Malley is very cavalier about it;

O’Malley told reporters yesterday that he thinks the surcharge is fair. “We’re not going to be shy about asking our fellow citizens who make more than a million dollars a year to pay an additional three-quarters percent,” he said.

But that’s not all he said. On radio station WMAL this morning on the Grandy and Andy Show, they played the rest of the quote since I don’t have the transcript, I’ll paraphrase; “I think there are enough millionaires in Maryland who are patriotic enough they’ll gladly pay the tax.”

Now it’s our patriotic duty to hand over our money gladly to the irresponsible clowns in Annapolis who won’t even consider cutting their wasteful spending programs and raise taxes willy-nilly and declare victory over the rich.

Crossposted at Red Maryland

Category: Economy, Politics