Maryland Millionaires Missing
May 27, 2009 Political
The People’s Republic of Maryland is about as left as they come. The state has so many Democrats in the largest, most heavily populated subdivisions that all the others combined cannot overcome the deficit. This means a lot of Democrats win elections and the same ones win over and over and…
The previous governor of the state was a Republican, the first one in about 40 years. He assumed office with a deficit and left with an excess. He did some things I did not like but was moderately conservative which in this state is way right.
When Democrat Martin O’Malley defeated Republican Robert Ehrlich in 2006 the surplus disappeared not long after O’Malley took office. He had to pay his special interest buddies off and make good on the promises to people who got him elected. It was not long before a special session of the legislature was called in order to discuss the budget problems. We all knew that meant a tax increase.
In that session the Democrats raised the state sales tax 20% (from 5 to 6%) and they raised the income tax on the “rich.” Up until that time the rate in Maryland was the same for everyone but the Democrats decided that the rich needed to pay more to redistribute the wealth to others. Many of us warned that the wealthy would pick up and move or would find ways to reduce their taxable income. No, they would grin and bear it, or so said the Baltimore Sun.
The Wall Street Journal has an article that discusses the tax increases and how Maryland has one third fewer millionaires than it had last year. That’s right, one third of the millionaires are no longer around. Some of this is because of the economy but many of them just packed up and moved on.
One year later, nobody’s grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller’s office concedes is a “substantial decline.” On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year — even at higher rates.
O’Malley and his Democratic buddies could not get spending under control. Well, the reality is, they did not want to. They continue to pass unfunded mandates and though the law requires a balanced budget they can’t seem to manage that. The solution was simple for them. Being the good Democrats they are, they raised taxes on the rich. Some of the rich voted with their feet and now the state is taking in less money than it anticipated so the not so rich are going to end up footing the bill.
One other issue along these lines is the slot machine fiasco. Ehrlich tried to get slots through legislative action and the Democrats shot him down because “that is no way to balance a budget.” O’Malley, who was vehemently opposed to slots, was elected and all of the sudden slots are a good idea to raise money. They put it on the ballot as a referendum which means it becomes part of the state Constitution. It is never a good idea to put something like this in the Constitution. It passed and now they are stuck with the rules which can only be changed with another referendum. If they had legislated it they could have changed it with the legislative process.
Now we have slots that can’t be put into place because the rules are all screwed up. We have gone 7 years since Ehrlich introduced them which means if they had enacted the slots then they would be in place and generating revenue.
Maryland can’t get its act together because it is run by liberal Democrats and, like nearly every state run by Democrats, it is run poorly and in the red.
The people of Maryland need to wake up and start voting out all the people who keep making the messes. Einstein once said that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result was the definition of insanity.
The people of Maryland are insane.
Cross posted at Grizzly Groundswell
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Tags: budget, Maryland, millionaire, slot machines, tax increase
Maryland Governor Awakens from Coma, has Epiphany
Sep 26, 2007 Uncategorized
Maryland’s Governor, Martin O’Malley, has awakened from a coma this week and has discovered information that was widely known for the last four years. O’Malley has just now discovered that millions of dollars leave the state of Maryland and go to Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia. He has just realized that slot machines in those states are drawing huge crowds from Maryland, crowds that are more than happy to spend their money in places that are more accommodating to their needs. It would appear as if he has also just discovered that Maryland’s horse racing industry is in serious financial trouble and that slots at race tracks might help. He is only about four and a half years too late.
When O’Malley was the mayor of Baltimore, a city that is no better off because of his tenure (despite his claims to the contrary), he was opposed to slot machines. He said that slots were a morally bankrupt method of obtaining revenue to pay the bills. Of course, his opposition came when Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich wanted those slot machines. Some of O’Malley’s fellow Democrats in Annapolis were also opposed to slot machines and, as is true with all Democrats, preferred to raise taxes in order to provide satiety for their spending appetites.
The State of Maryland has a 1.5 billion dollar budget deficit. This is the fault of the Democrats in this state and only an idiot believes otherwise. The Democrats have held power here for over forty years and Ehrlich was only the third or fourth Republican Governor in the state’s history. Previous governors and their Democratic lap dogs in Annapolis have continued to spend unfettered and they have imposed spending requirements without securing appropriate funding sources. They refuse to cut government growth and make only token budget cuts because to them the only way to solve problems is to remove money from the people who actually work to earn it.
For four years Governor Ehrlich tried to get slot machines to raise revenue for the horse racing industry and to increase cash flow into the state coffers. For four years he met opposition from people who allowed their political agendas to get in the way of functioning professionally and honestly. These very same politicians seem to have had a change of heart and will now grant O’Malley the slot machines. They will give him the win Ehrlich could not obtain. The only thing that has changed in this time is that the deficit has increased. Now, there are those still opposed but they are willing to compromise, something they tell us politicians must be willing to do. Too bad these dimwits were not willing to compromise when a Republican was in the driver’s seat. If they had, we would be on our way to recovery.
My personal opinion is that I do not care about slot machines one way or another. I gamble occasionally but have never been to the other states to gamble. I believe that having the machines is a good way to increase revenue and that if the people want them then we should get them. I do not believe the issue should be used as a political weapon while the state falls deeper into the abyss. I also find it hard to take people opposed to slots seriously when they say that gaming is not the way to make money and that gambling affects poor people who spend their money on the games of chance rather than on their bills.
I have a hard time because the state of Maryland runs a lottery. It is not just a one pick a day small time operation either. It started as one, where a three digit number was drawn every evening. This quickly morphed into three and four digit drawings two times a day, mega millions, match 5, the lotto, as well as a number of other games and special events. They even have a zillion varieties of scratch off lotteries. All these games are played by the people who the Democrats worry about so what difference will slots make? It is not like these things are out of the control of government because the state is solely responsible for the lottery and for deciding how many games are designed and introduced.
The state runs the lottery and it has race tracks where on any given day during the racing season, people can be found spending money betting on horses. The state has not shut down that industry and they have not shut down the lottery and yet slot machines give them a moral dilemma? Give me a break.
I predicted after the election that we would get slots but I also predicted we would get tax increases in every venue imaginable. The Speaker wants tax increases and the governor, in addition to wanting to raise taxes, (after his epiphany) wants slots. The compromise of which they speak is that we will get both. O’Malley is on his tour of the state touting all the taxes he is going to raise. Gas, cigarettes, income, sales, services, property (they say they will lower the property tax rate but we all know that means they will increase our assessments so we will pay more), you name it and he is going to tax it. If he could figure out how to measure it, he would tax the air we breathe.
I will not be a party to these games and have no intention of willingly forking over more money. I had always said that I would not go to other states just to play slots but that if we had them here I would play every once in a while. I now vow that I will never play slots in this state and I ask others to do the same. Go to the other states and support them because Maryland does not deserve your support. I recommend that you visit Delaware to play the slots because they have no sales tax. While you are there you might as well buy the things you need and avoid the Maryland taxes at the same time. You folks who smoke and happen to live near Virginia, you might want to go there because the taxes on cigarettes there will be about $1.70 ($17.00 a carton) lower than Maryland. Folks should also consider Internet purchases (that is until MD finds a way to tax that). I also recommend that anyone who can, move to another state. I cannot move just yet but I want out of this mad house so I will stay open to other opportunities.
The state of Maryland is in a terrible state because of the Democrats who have run it for decades. It has been run into the ground and now they have begun digging. The poor school system has produced generations of people who are not bright enough to recognize this so they keep voting for the same idiots who got us in this mess. As I have been saying, we need to vote all of these poor performers out of office and replace them with competent people who actually have experience in the real world.
It is time for a revolution in this state. It is time to rid ourselves of the vermin that infests Annapolis and it is time for us to take charge of our future because left in the hands of these idiots, there will be no brighter days ahead.
As an aside, I am kind of glad that the taxes will screw the poor and working class folks very greatly and that it will eat the hell out of the income of the wealthy. I want them to feel every ounce of pain that the tax increases cause and I want them to feel it each and every day. They voted for this idiot to run the state and I want their choice to hurt them as much as possible. I want them to pay all these increases only to see their money given to ILLEGALS for college. I want them to be so devastated by these taxes that if carpet costs 10 cents a square yard they could not afford to upholster a gnat’s ass. Pain is a great teacher and until these people start feeling a lot of pain for their choices they will continue to make bad ones. Perhaps if they are affected enough they will finally get the message.
For those who believe this idiot governor when he says that the taxes will only affect the rich. He is lying through his teeth. Remember, he was going to stop the electric rate hike if you would only vote for him. How did that work out, by the way? Oh yeah, 75% increase. Add that to your new taxes and this guy is costing you a lot of money.
Some people never learn.
Tags: gambling, horse racing, illegal aliens, income, liar, Maryland, O'Malley, Political Commentary, property, slot machines, taxes