David Lublin at FSP on O'Malley's Shrewd Slots Strategy Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Check out David Lublin's solid piece at Free State Politics on the political maneuvering on slots by Governor O'Malley.

Washington Post: Tax Proposals in Maryland Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Washington Post, July 18, 2007:

Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and leading lawmakers say they are giving serious consideration to overhauling the state's tax brackets, which are among the flattest in the nation. Everyone with taxable income of more than $3,000 a year pays the same rate.

O'Malley called the structure "patently unfair" this week, saying at a Democratic breakfast in Frederick that Peter Angelos, the wealthy trial lawyer who owns the Baltimore Orioles, should not pay the same rate as "the woman who cleans his office."

"I'm in favor of progressive taxation, where people who make a lot more pay more," O'Malley told reporters recently.

The article goes on to discuss, in an oversimplified manner, how the state's income tax brackets work in practice. One proposal is to create a 6 percent bracket for earners earning about $150K single, $250K jointly, in taxable income. The article does not go into the state's personal exemptions or mildly odd standard deduction calculation, and also fails to note the deductibility on Form 1040, Schedule A of most state income taxes for most high-income taxpayers, yielding reduced marginal net damage from a state income tax increase due to already high federal income taxation.
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Governor O'Malley mischaracterized what progressive taxation (of income) is. It's not when "those who earn a lot more pay more," it's when those who earn more pay a lot more. I consider O'Malley's characterization disingenuous; it's sloppy beyond mere negligence.

All taxation is an invasion, a taking by force. The fact that cops rarely collect taxes at gunpoint (in the U.S.) does not make taxation anything other than a taking by force with some due process review. Non-compliance results in garnishments, levies, sales in execution and in very rare cases criminal prosecution for non-filers.

The question I have is whether the taxation of the marginal income that buys clothing and the staff of life should occur at a lower rate, directly or indirectly, than the taxation of the marginal income that, in practice, buys marble kitchen remodellings and vacations at Aspen - not because the latter are "bad" or out of some class envy but because the net damage to low-income workers of extracting tax money out of their survival staples bothers me. The current tax code provides for a small state earned income tax credit for many such workers to mitigate those concerns somewhat.

But providing relief to poor people is not what the main Democratic proposals are discussing. They are not talking about making it easy for Martin O'Malley's cleaning lady. They are discussing, instead, increasing the tax screw on the most successful people in every field while leaving the slightly lower tier of middle-high earners untouched. I would respect an across the board increase of the rate much more, even though my family and I would fare worse under a broader taxation than under the Democratic proposal. There's no fundamental reason why we should be exempt from such a proposed increase; my family's basic needs are covered and I would hate for Angelos to have his rates increased more due to Democratic lack of character and fear of taxpayers broadly on this issue. If they cannot raise taxes across the board for everyone above subsistence level, they should not do so at all.

Hong Kong is generally regarded one of the freest economies if not the freest on Earth despite having one of the world's least free economies only 20 minutes away by commuter train. Most Hong Kongers don't pay income tax. In effect, the income tax does not come into effect until around 220,000 HKD per annum, which is about $29,000 USD dollars or so. One of the biggest fears of the business community in Hong Kong is threat of democracy or, more precisely, full home rule and universal suffrage. The fear is that the tax system that allows workers to earn pretty much all of the income that they need for life's basics without taxation would be destroyed if a socialist, pro-tax party got elected. Higher income earners do often complain about the brutality of Hong Kong taxation and the high rate of 15% that they suffer. May such a rate smite us and may we never recover.

In a sense, however, the Hong Kong system is paradoxically both the flattest and the most progressive of all tax systems in the industrialized world. The rate jumps high from zero to the maximum rate in one arguably nasty progressive leap on middle income taxpayers. While such a system probably could not be implemented in Maryland practically, I would like to see a system where low-income workers are outside the tax system up to a subsistence level of income and that the rates stay flat thereafter.

Attila went hard on the proposed rates:

I'll tell you how it can be. Governor O'Malley's argument for progressive tax rates is a phony. It's a way of punishing wealthy people for having created wealth. It's a scheme based on ideology, not economics, and on envy, not fairness.

I don't think it's envy or bad faith when you are dealing with the lower end of the income spectrum. It's envy when you are doing what the Democrats are discussing: soaking the highest producers without helping the poor through relief and without demanding that all of the "non-subsistence poor" meet the same rate.

But O'Malley was smart in the examples he picked. Angelos is at the "bowel obstruction" level of popularity due to his decade of perceived baseball malpractice in Baltimore, and it's hard and cruel not to want to help somebody who earns a modest living holding a mop and toilet brush with her face near somebody's toilet. But perhaps a better example would be: should Ravens coach Brian Billick (after a GOOD year!) or a successful restaurant owner who works 70 hours a week get soaked on their taxes marginally worse than some non-disabled citizen hump who doesn't have steady (i.e, moderate and growing) income because he got fired for screwing off or watching porn on the job or not showing up to the job?

Governor, if you tax Brian Billick, you owe it to all of us to tax all of us the same way, exempting people's subsistence survival money. Tax me right here.

UPDATE: Isaac Smith, unlike Martin O'Malley, puts forth some actual arguments for the creation of the sorts of income tax brackets O'Malley advocates in a well-written counterpoint at FSP.

Baltimore Sun: O'Malley, Franchot "At It" Again Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, July 8, 2007:

Last week's debate over an Eastern Shore land deal brought to the surface tensions that have been brewing between Gov. Martin O'Malley and Comptroller Peter Franchot for months over how Maryland's chief tax collector plans to change the structure and scope of his office, a problem some political observers believe became inevitable when voters elected the two highly ambitious Democrats last fall.

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The most recent dust-up came when Franchot questioned why the state and Queen Anne's County were paying $5 million for the land -- $400,000 more than the highest appraisal and nearly $1 million more than the average of two appraisals.

Franchot also expressed concern that Department of Natural Resources Secretary John R. Griffin, who did consulting work related to the deal before coming to the O'Malley administration, had a conflict of interest.

O'Malley was not amused. At a news conference, the governor dismissed the issues raised in Franchot's "18-question interrogatory," saying that neither they nor any facts that had come to light warranted a review of "the decision the Board of Public Works reached unanimously."

For the non-Maryland readership here, the Comptroller and Governor each sit along with the State Treasurer on the powerful three-person Board of Public Works which administers most major expenditures on contracts, projects and the like. In addition, the Comptroller has a grab bag of other minor powers and duties under specific statutes, in addition to his or her regular "day job" - collecting taxes.

Both of these men have titanic, attorney-sized egos. I am sure that each is convinced that the other is an obnoxious hindrance to getting things done well.

I am perhaps marginally less critical of Peter Franchot than is Franchot critic Kenny Burns, but he and I would probably agree that a public manifestation of Franchot's competence at, and commitment to, the unsexy "day job" of collecting and accounting for Maryland taxes would be a most welcome addition to Franchot's public portfolio.

Barry Rascovar: O'Malley the Politician Needs to Step Aside Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Barry Rascovar in the NW Baltimore County Community Times, June 14, 2007, discussing the Front Man's penchant for demagoguery over statesmanship:

For Martin O'Malley, politics always seems to win out over enforcing the law.

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O'Malley the politician is good at blaming someone else for problems - preferably a Republican or corporation.

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Playing the blame game poisons the well of public debate. Inconsistent law enforcement shatters public confidence. The politician in O'Malley has the upper hand. Will the statesman ever emerge?

Rascovar explores the specific examples of O'Malley's block of the controversial Queen Anne's County development project and his decrying of the end of the BG&E statutory rate caps.

Baltimore Sun: O'Malley Asked By Environmentalists to Rethink ICC Support Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, May 6, 2007:

Gov. Martin O'Malley fully funded open space programs, pushed for stricter emissions controls for cars, joined a regional initiative to cut down on greenhouse gases and backed new fees to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. But amid their jubilation, many Maryland environmentalists still find they have an 18.8-mile thorn in their sides: the Inter-County Connector.

The League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, the Audubon Naturalist Society, 1,000 Friends of Maryland and other groups have called for O'Malley to rethink his support for the $2.4 billion toll road that would run through Montgomery and Prince George's counties.

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Construction on the first segment, a 7-mile stretch running from Interstate 370 to Georgia Avenue, is due to begin in the fall. When completed, it will be a six-lane highway connecting I-370 near Rockville with the I-95/U.S. 1 corridor in Prince George's County. Officials say it will take thousands of cars off clogged local roads. It is scheduled to be completed in 2012.

I find it highly unlikely that Governor O'Malley will waver on this. I guess I would rather see the same cash used to relieve north-south traffic by transit improvements but there's no denying the disastrous current state of gridlock in mid-Montgomery. Getting some of the heavy lateral traffic off of the ridiculous two-lane country roads near Olney and Colesville onto a dedicated highway should facilitate quicker access for buses and private cars to the two rail transit "spokes" that terminate just below the proposed route and current limited access spur line of I-370 (yes, they had the nerve to give an on-ramp a Interstate route number designation, they did it in Baltimore with I-395 as well.)

I would hope that the highway would accommodate a future circumferential light-rail right-of-way down the center or immediately adjacent to one set of lane; such a right -of-way could not sustain meaningful rail transit now but in the future with additional density and suburbanization of the federal government, who knows? But I do not know whether such a right-of-way reservation is in the plans for any part of the construction. Light rail up Georgia Avenue from Glenmont hooking a left turn WNW towards Shady Grove down the middle of the new highway could be viable in a few years to close the upper ends of the loop. If you think it's crazy, note that the parking garage at Glenmont has a years-long waiting list for guaranteed reserved spaces. Better to plan now and have the right-of-way ready, especially since we don't do planning and logistics terribly well in this country and perhaps have not done so since D-Day, I suspect sometimes.

Outsourcing is the new big thing, right? Maybe the Dutch or the Swiss could place a bid to run our transportation operations and planning for 20 years.

MD Conservatarian: Fresh Snark re: Minority Contracting and Governor O'Malley Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I cannot excerpt a slice that does justice to the entire pie, so go check out Maryland Conservatarian's critique of comments by Governor O'Malley and Albert Wynn regarding historically black colleges and minority contracting.

Even those who support minority contracting programs would question the wisdom of making the assignment of such contracts the first criterion by which a state governmental department should be run or evaluated. Suitable nominees for first criteria would, in my opinion, include: compliance with budget and with applicable law, reduction of turnover, transparency, supervision (as opposed to allocation) of contracts, etc.

Washington Post: O'Malley to Get Own Chick-n-Ruth's Sandwich Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Washington Post, January 18, 2007:

At Chick and Ruth's Delly, an Annapolis landmark, a change in power means a change in menu. The deli on Main Street has named sandwiches after local bigwigs since Republican Spiro T. Agnew was governor. (His was a ham and turkey sandwich with bacon.) Last week, owner Ted Levitt retired the Ehrlich sandwich (white-meat turkey with lettuce and tomato on wheat toast) and unveiled with a flourish of butcher's paper the new O'Malley sandwich (roast beef with provolone, horseradish and lettuce on rye).

"We presented it to the governor-elect in butcher paper. We didn't use anything fancy like cloth because we're a deli, after all," Levitt said.

Chick & Ruth's Delly is a favorite "Mallet" selection of the Crab. Open all night for your downtown Annapolis political hack needs, with good pickles.

Baltimore Sun: Annapolis Irish Pubs Warm to O'Malley Arrival Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, January 17. 2006:

Irish eyes are smiling in Annapolis.

Local Irish pub owners predict that Martin O'Malley's presence as governor will enliven the state capital's social scene, raising spirits and boosting business. There are, after all, at least three such taverns a short walk from the governor's mansion.

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"If you measure the quality of a city or a civilization by the number of its Irish pubs, then Annapolis is doing pretty well," he said in an interview.

Fintan Galway, a co-owner of Galway Bay, said, "We love the fact that the governor's Irish and his name's O'Malley and he celebrates being Irish."

"It can do nothing but enhance," Galway said, adding that outgoing Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. is "more inward, and O'Malley's more spontaneous."

I have read of the differences between Irish and English pubs - the real ones, not what we Yanks think they are. Those who can speak solidly to the difference - please do.

A defect in Annapolis is the lack of a decent German Biergarten - a surprising defect given the ethnic heritage of Anne Arundel County. Blob's Park in Jessup is about 17 miles away to the NW off of 175 near the BW parkway. What's good about Blob's is that it is old-school Bavarian in its motif, founded by a Bavarian immigrant who immigrated after the major wave of German immigration that hit northern Anne Arundel County which, by coincidence, included one Rudolf Rupp, my great-grandfather. They sell hard liquor there and snacks but the beer selections were quite good on my last visit long ago. Annapolis has a large Germantown neighborhood, and in North County you can easily see the references to a prior notable German presence (a casual reading of the street names makes that clear.)

But Annapolis does have a dense cluster of Irish and British pubs and shops. I suspect somehow that the Irish pubs will get the better fraction of the increase in trade, given the number of such pubs in which the very Irish new governor played as front man for O'Malley's March, which frequently played "The Battle of Baltimore", a song that recalls the days when Baltimorean fired upon the British, and not with blanks.