Tax Policy: The Right Approach vs. The Right's Approach

Since tax increases are a vital part of Governor O'Malley's budget proposal, we're hearing all the predictable anti-tax grumbling that comes whenever our society talks taxes.

Ever since the political ascendancy of Ronald Reagan and his anti-tax philosophy, our nation has been on a collision course with disaster. For a generation now, the GOP has framed taxes not as the cost of getting things done, but as part of a war by the government against the people: Their refrain: "The government wants to take your hard-earned money and spend it themselves. But the American people know how to spend their money better than the government does."

But the government is the American people. Once we jettison that idea, we abandon the fundamental premise of representational democracy and label our federal, state, and local elected governments as illegitimate.

Over the next weeks, we in Maryland need to take a hard look at our state and local needs. There are a few million too many of us in Maryland to fit into a meeting place and efficiently do this ourselves, so we ask our elected delegates and senators act on our behalf.

And we ask them to approach the issue rationally. This requires answering two questions:

First: What do we, as a society, have as our priorities?
Only then can we ask the next question: How do we go about raising the funds to effect those priorities?

Notice that Republicans tend to switch the questions around. They ask first what we feel like paying, independent of what our actual needs and priorities are. After answering that question, they turn around and say we can't afford to fix Social Security, rescue Medicare, or provide health insurance to kids.

Whenever the issue of taxes comes up, Republicans reflexively complain that our taxes are too high. But they don't say how they've reached that conclusion. How can we determine that our taxes are too high if we haven't first determined what our needs are?

Do we want to fix our system public education system? Do we want to prevent our bridges and roads from decaying? Do we want to help older Marylanders get access to necessary medical care? Do we want to keep toxins out of the environment? Do we want to prevent victims of drug addiction in Baltimore from contracting HIV? (Sen. Mooney apparently offers up a big NO to that one, lovely man that he is).

We must first answer these questions before we can decide whether our taxes are at the appropriate level.

Over the past few months, the employees of the Department of Legislative Services in Annapolis have worked incredibly hard to come up with the costs and benefits associated with various state policies and programs. Before deciding how much I want to pay in taxes, I'm going to take a hard look at the numbers. And I'll be asking my senator and three delegates to do the same.