Click on the image below for a closer view of the 2008 general election Ficker Amendment vote in Montgomery County by Congressional District, state legislative district, council district and local area.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
MoCo General Election 2008: Ficker Amendment
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18 comments:
What is most interesting about this vote result is that the County Council member from District 2 and all 4 state legislators from District 15, where the amendment PASSED with more than 55% of the vote, OPPOSED the amendment. The huge property tax increase we got just before this, and which they supported, has caused hundreds of foreclosures. Now they are planning to give us a great big gasoline tax increase next year after the election despite the fact that the people in these areas oppose such an increase. How can elected officials be so out of touch with the people they claim to represent? Special interest influence pure and simple. And to stimulate discussion I invite the above elected folks to write in on Maryland Politics Watch to explain why they think homeowners are an ATM.
Happy New Year Everyone! Change for the better is coming ion 2010!
Are you actually suggesting the national real estate meltdown was caused by a property tax increase in Montgomery County?
-Marc
In 2008, voters chose Obama and the Ficker amendment, surprising some. Will 2010 bring the interesting outcome of adding Ficker to the otherwise lockstep County Council?
Amy Ginther
Silver Spring
Marc, are you actually suggesting that if we had a 14%increase in property taxes today, on top of an 10% energy tax increase, on top of a 20% sales tax increase, on top of a 52.6% income tax increase on the top bracket, on top of a 20% car tax increase, on top of a 18% corporate tax increase, on top of $53,000/day in speed camera taxes, on top of a 33% increase in parking fees, on top of a 5 year high Metro fare increase, on top of a 15 year high waterbill increase with another 9% added on, on top of up to a 75% electric bill increase, all in today's recession that you would say that the foreclosures over the next year would be a result of the national housing crisis? Keep in mind that that 14% property tax increase the council gave us has been a 14% increase not just for one year, but also for each year since. The council has been part of the foreclosure problem, not part of the foreclosure solution.
That is why change is coming to Montgomery County in 2010!
Happy New Year to all!
I think the people of Nevada, Arizona, California, and the 8 other states with a higher foreclosure rate (http://www.realtytrac.com/foreclosure/foreclosure-rates.html) than Maryland will be troubled to hear that the Montgomery County Council is responsible for their problems. I agree with you, the Montgomery County Council has no business contributing to foreclosures nationwide.
Do we pay taxes in Montgomery County? Yes. Do homeowners and other County residents enjoy doing so? No. Are they willing to do it? Yes, because we benefit from good schools, county services, and even good transportation (Metro, for all its faults, is a pretty great thing to have running through the County).
All of these can be improved and should be, but Montgomery County residents are capable of looking around, seeing the good in Montgomery County, and not voting for Robin Ficker.
-Marc
Mark, we are not talking Maryland here, we are talking Montgomery County. I can assure you that the foreclosure rate in Germantown, close to my home, is above that of some of the far away places you mention.
I have a unique computer program, Mark, which gives me the names and addresses of foreclosure owners in Montgomery County on a daily basis. And I have spoken personally to a couple of thousand of them. Have you ever spoken to somebody facing foreclosure in Montgomery County, Mark? You should. They will tell you the effect of a 14% increase in property taxes on a person already living on the financial edge. They will tell you the debilitating effect of all the tax increases we have had here in the past two years on somebody who does not even have a job.
I know you haven't been here very long, Mark. But you are going to see some change on the council in November.
Mr. Ficker, are you running for an at-large seat or a district seat? If the latter, which one?
Mr. Ficker,
I have lived in Montgomery County, in Rockville and Bethesda, for 23 years. I'm not sure how you define very long, but I was here when:
1. The voters of District 4 rejected your message in 2009.
2. The voters of the County rejected your message in 2006 when you ran for County Executive.
3. When the voters, through several elections, rejected your charter amendments.
4. When you were the Heckler.
I will not apologize for not harassing people facing foreclosure. The last thing a family needs when facing such a life altering circumstance is a call from a blogger. The second to last thing they need is a call from a political opportunist reveling in the country's economic calamities because he wants to use them to justify his tax theories.
I think everyone would agree that someone who is unemployed would have a difficult time paying taxes. That is why Democrats support progressive taxation including differentiated income tax brackets and increased refundable tax credits for those with low incomes but who still pay the flat tax rates on payrolls, gas, and goods. The Republican Party (your party) has opposed efforts to make taxes more progressive.
-Marc
Marc. the first thing a family facing foreclosure needs is a call from a real estate broker, who just happens to be an attorney, but who is not calling them as an attorney.
Your parety just voted for a 20% increase in the state sales tax, which every man, woman, and child pay every day. It is the most regressive tax. Furthermore, Delaware, with which we share an 85 mile border, has no sales tax at all, giving us a competitive disadvantage. The folks in your party who pushed this through deserve to be unelected on the basis of this vote alone!
The sales tax increase was in 2007, before the recession and the credit market collapse that occurred in late 2008. It is also worth mentioning that the increase was a penny. The reason you get to a penny increase a 20% increase is because the tax is so low.
At 6 cents, we have a sales tax even with or less than regional neighbors such as New Jersey (Bob Ehrlich's new favorite comparison to MD), Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
If Maryland has a competitive disadvantage with Delaware because their sales tax is 0 and ours is 6%, the same was true when their sales tax was 0 and ours was 5%. I assume this means you propose elimination of the sales tax? I wouldn't mind not paying it, so if you can tell me how you will replace the revenue to fund our schools, bay clean-up, transportation, state parks, programs for the poor, and so on, I'm all ears.
Marc and the council must have been delighted with the fact that within about the past two years the income tax rate for the highest brackets has been raised 52.6%. And 60% of those affected live in Montgomery County.
Mark, why is it that I was the only person from Montgomery County who testified against the 20% increase in the state sales tax when the legislature held its only hearing on the matter two years ago? Where were you and the council?
Do you know that there has never been a state to cut its state
sales tax? Massachusetts is about to become the first. There is a question on the 2010 ballot to cut the sales tax from 6.25% to 3%. Watch it pass in the most liberal state. Watch businesses from all over the Nation flock there after it passes. Watch the jobs that could be coming to Maryland go to Massachusetts.
Here in my Long Branch neighborhood (where the amendment actually failed), the households up and down University Boulevard that displayed signs in support of the Ficker amendment were the very same households that displayed signs opposing the closure of the Sligo Creek Golf Course. Apparently, those anti-tax activists have a real consistency problem when considering government services they love...
- Kim Propeack
Massachusetts is comparable to Maryland in many ways and businesses looking for high income areas, strong schools, and decent transportation will find a lot to like in either state. That said, Massachusetts has a corporate tax rate of 9.5% compared to 8.3% in Maryland. I'm not sure a change in the sales tax is enough to lure businesses to there over Maryland.
As for testifying against the sales tax increase, I am not surprised to hear that people who did not oppose it did not testify against it. If the sales tax is so deeply unpopular, why did a grand total of 1 person, our of 1 million, testify against it?
As with all taxes, people do not really like paying the sales tax but are generally willing to do so if the funds are spent properly for good services. I am more interested in making sure that is the case than complaining about taxes.
-Marc
Nice try Kim. We are not "anti-tax," just anti the big tax increases our office holders have given us over the past two years including at the end of 2007 when we were in a housing recession at least, Marc. But I was in charge of putting up Keep Sligo Golf Open signs. I knew what certain folks wanted to do before we put up all those signs. They wanted to develop the largest open tract of land inside the beltway---one near two Metro stops, the Purple Line and the Beltway. Then they thought they might do a little creative financing of campaigns, etc. with developer "contributions"
The Montgomery County Board of Elections website includes an archive of past election results. The 2008 General Election results shows 5,060 as the margin of victory for the Ficker Amendment (County Question B), not the 613 in the Congressional District total presented here. The chart is missing the absentee and provisional votes.
A. Ginther
Silver Spring
Amy, that is true because this data was assembled by entering results for individual precincts.
While I detest actually engaging in conversation with you, your response forces me to inquire. Are you placing lawn signs on properties without permission Mr. Ficker? Or perhaps you are an absentee landlord in the 5th district and place signs on the lawns of innocent tenants? Maybe you'll run for election here soon....
- Kim Propeack
Kome on Kim-----"while I detest actually engaging in conversation with you"---where does that come from? To answer your question, every single Keep Sligo Golf Open sign on a lawn was placed there with the homeowners permission. I know because I asked hundreds and hundreds of them myself. Happy New Year!
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