All of the Gazette columnists dislike the outcome of the special session for totally different reasons. Blair Lee writes that Montgomery got taken again by caving on the income tax since its revenues come disproportionately from Montgomery County. However, Blair Lee completely ignores the rest of the tax package, and one should assess it based on the total impact, not just one tax.
My colleague, Allan Lichtman, attacks the Senate, and specifically senators from Montgomery, for exactly the opposite reason. Allan thinks the tax bill is not progressive enough:
Lichtman is right that the affluent have benefited from the Bush tax cuts and essentially argues that the proposed tax bite on them was so small that they would notice it. The latter part of this argument was undermined by the backlash against the bill. They appear to have noticed. Opponents also argue that raising federal taxes doesn't cause Maryland to suffer the same loss in competitiveness vis-a-vis other states, so the place to seek more progressive taxation is in Congress--not the General Assembly.State Senators from Montgomery County played a major role in dismantling proposals for a progressive state tax structure. Where was Brian Frosh of Bethesda, the progressive conscience of the Senate for so many years? Where was freshman Sen. Jamie Raskin of Takoma Park, who promised in his campaign against veteran incumbent Ida Ruben to be a progressive hero in the Senate? In what is likely the most important vote they will cast in their four-year term, both senators voted for the regressive tax package, along with nearly every other senator from Montgomery County. Commendably, Frosh and Raskin voted against the slots proposal.
It is understandable that senators from Montgomery County would want to protect their constituents who are relatively more affluent than residents of other jurisdictions. But they should not be protecting the 5 percent to 10 percent of the county’s richest citizens at the expense of everyone else. The rich have already benefited enormously from the tax cuts pushed through Congress by the Bush administration and today rake in more of the national income than at any time since the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929.
I discovered a couple of interesting factoids:
(1) Maryland has the 14th most progressive tax structure in the nation according to at one analysis (located using that scientific method of "doing a google"). Maryland is more progressive than such liberal paragons as Massachusetts (27th) and New York (26th). Virginia is just one notch below us in 15th place. Delaware is first in the nation in terms of progressivity but it has very few taxes at all.
(2) Maryland's tax structure is mildly regressive--the tax structure of all but six states is regressive with many being substantially more so than Maryland. Of course, federal taxes, which loom much larger than state and local taxes, shape the overall structure of the tax burden.
