Ignoring the fact that he claimed he had to raise taxes on working Marylanders to balance his budget, Governor Martin O’Malley decided to create a new pay grade for some of his aides (Washington Times link);
Category: Montgomery Co./Maryland
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WashTimes disputes O’Malley’s “lean budget”
Brian Griffiths quotes the Baltimore Sun’s fauning article complimenting Maryland governor O’Malley’s “lean budget” But Tony LoBianco at the Washington Times disputes that characterization;
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O’Malley’s job approval lower than Bush
In today’s Washington Times Tony LoBianco and Seth McLaughlin write that O’Malley’s tax hike battle has cost him politically;
Maryland residents say Gov. Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, is doing a worse job than President Bush, according to a new poll released yesterday.
Marylanders gave Mr. Bush, a Republican, a 36 percent job-approval rating, just slightly more than the 33 percent they gave Mr. O’Malley, according to the Fox 5/The Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports poll.A separate poll in Virginia shows 51 percent of residents approved of the work Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, is doing, while 46 percent approved of Mr. Bush’s work.
The Times continues;
Mr. O’Malley’s approval rating slipped 1 percentage point from October, before he called lawmakers back to Annapolis to raise $1.4 billion in taxes. But respondents who said he was doing a “poor” job increased from 30 percent to 37 percent.
O’Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese declined to comment.Yeah, wait’ll Marylanders start paying that tax and see how unpopular he gets.
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What’s Maryland’s government hiding?
Tony Lobianco writes in this morning’s Washington Times that the Maryland Attorney General’s Office is trying to block testimony in a lawsuit aimed at blocking impending tax hikes;
The state attorney general today will ask Maryland’s highest court to block a key witness’s testimony in a lawsuit aiming to overturn the results of last month’s General Assembly special session.
The state will file a writ of certiorari with the Maryland Court of Appeals seeking to block testimony from Mary Monahan, the chief clerk of the House of Delegates, said Raquel Guillory, spokeswoman for Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler.
“I am very surprised that the attorney general is exercising this degree of desperation,” said Irwin Kramer, attorney for Republican lawmakers and a Carroll County businessman who filed the suit this month. “It makes it all the more important that we find out exactly what the attorney [general] is trying to hide.”
The Washington Examiner reports that it’s a pretty straightforward complaint and the testimony of the clerk is germaine;
Attorneys representing Republicans want to question Mary Monahan, who records and validates House proceedings, about records kept during the session, which resulted in about $1.3 billion dollars in tax increases.
They contend the Senate adjourned too long without permission from the House, which they say violates the constitution.
A deposition has been scheduled for 4 p.m. Monday in Easton, said Irwin Kramer, who is representing the GOP. Kramer said the state is simply trying to keep the facts from becoming public.
“For me it shows the intense desire to silence the witness,” Kramer said Sunday afternoon.
But Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for Attorney General’s office said Monahan’s testimony is not germane to the legislative process.
“We believe that the deposition is unnecessary, one, because of legislative privilege and, two, anything that she has to offer is irrelevant” to the results of the special session, She said.
Who else but the chief clerk could testify to the length of the session? I mean that’s whole purpose of the clerk’s office, isn’t it? Methinks Democrats doth protest too much. Mary Monahan must have intimate knowledge of more nefarious activities among Democrats enough so that the details of their whole scheme may have a political cost this year.
[Attorney General’s Office spokesperson Rachel] Guillory said Sunday that a court stay on the new taxes would “cause undue hardship in the state.”
How? Because the government would be forced to operate on the same amount of money operated on in 2007? Because taxpayers could keep a few pennies of their own money a little longer? Pompous arrogance in the extreme.
(Crossposted at Red Maryland)
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Hey, O’Malley! I found your budget shortfall.
The Washington Time’s Tony Lobianco reports that an audit found $488 million in welfare payments to 52,000 Marylanders who either didn’t supply Social Security numbers or supplied false Social Security numbers; (more…)
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Court upholds immigration laws in VA
Earlier this year, Prince William County, VA passed legislation that would require anyone to prove they’re legal residents of the county before they participated in any county programs. Seems reasonable doesn’t it? Well, not according to the illegal residents of Prince William County (surprise), so they took the County to court.Â
They were handed their collective ass yesterday in court, according to Seth McLaughlin of the Washington Times;A federal judge yesterday threw out a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Prince William County’s [Va.] new ordinance denying services to illegal aliens.Â
Judge James C. Cacheris said during a brief hearing at U.S. District Court in Alexandria that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the resolution passed earlier this year by the Prince William Board of County Supervisors.Judge Cacheris said he will issue a written ruling at a later time detailing his decision.Â
The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund filed the lawsuit last month on behalf of plaintiffs who included illegal aliens and the Woodbridge Workers Committee, an organization of day laborers in Prince William County.But county attorneys argued that the plaintiffs could not demonstrate they had suffered any harm under the measures, which have not been fully implemented.Â
“This is a big win,” said Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. “This is the best shot that some of the best litigators in the country can throw at our resolution against illegal immigration. I think that is very telling.”So what’s the result going to be? Well, I wrote back in October that Ike Leggett, Montgomery County (Maryland) Supervisor (across the Potomac River from PW County) has already accepted the inevitable – instead of passing similar laws that would prevent illegal immigrants from invading Maryland and draining us of our resources (the resources that we pay for with our tax dollars) Leggett just criticized Prince William County instead;
“When one jurisdiction tries to force people to move around, they don’t leave,†Leggett said. “They either shift the burden from one community to another, or they go underground. That’s why this is not a solution.â€
The result will be expanded services for illegals in Montgomery County, Maryland at the expense of legal residents because Maryland legislators are more interested in appearing humane to the world than protecting their own citizens.
(Crossposted at Red Maryland)
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WaPo and Maryland Dems celebrate screwing taxpayers (Updated)
Photo from Washington Post
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking as you look at the photo above of Marty O’Malley celebrating his victory over Maryland taxpayers yesterday. I’ll bet you all can caption it real well, especially after you read this adoring piece from the Washington Post entitled “O’Malley Increases Influence With Wins on Taxes and Slots“;
Gov. Martin O’Malley emerged from a grueling special session of the Maryland General Assembly with big wins on tax and slot machine legislation, praise from lawmakers for his willingness to tackle the state’s most vexing issues — and greatly increased clout in Annapolis.
Less clear, as O’Malley (D) and bleary-eyed legislators celebrated at a bill-signing ceremony yesterday, were the wider political ramifications of pushing through $1.4 billion a year in tax increases during a frantic three-week session called to solve the state’s chronic budget problems.
“How it plays politically is still up in the air,” said Sen. Brian E. Frosh (D-Montgomery). “Will people recognize it as hard choices that had to be made or as government run amok? But by any measure, the governor did an incredible job pulling it together. He was buttonholing people. He was schmoozing people. I don’t know if he was threatening people. At points, it was ugly, but it was certainly an impressive effort overall.”
A grueling session. How grueling is it to tell people bound by law to pay more of their own income? And guess what? The tax increase is to fund NEW spending – not a budget shortfall. the only shortfall is in the Democrats’ agenda to tie votes of non-working Marylanders to their little red wagon.
O’Malley was bound and determined to get a tax hike – he threatened to cut off essential services to communities (fire, police, rescue…) if the legislature wouldn’t fund his unneccessary spending increases. O’Malley has just become Maryland’s Mario Cuomo – the governor that drove Upstate New York into the dumper from which it hasn’t emerged.
UPDATE: I was finally able to get into the Washington Times this morning and Tony Lobianco has even more insane Democrat quotes about the process that took place behind the backs of Maryland taxpayers;
“This is the boldest move, the boldest action of any governor I have served with,” said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., Southern Maryland Democrat.
Bold? It’s bold to threaten to shut down essential services to raise taxes? Bold would be cutting waste and cutting programs, not jacking up taxes to further ensconce Democrats in power in Maryland.
“I’d like to thank all of you who were here for three weeks, which felt like three months, sometimes even three years,” said Mr. O’Malley, who called the session for lawmakers to consider his package of tax increases and his slots proposal to resolve a budget shortfall of between $1.5 billion and 1.7 billion, and for additional state spending.
I’m waiting for them to all recommend each other for a damn Medal of Honor for sneaking up behind taxpayers in the middle of the night and stabbing us in the back like the greedy criminals they’ve become.
So what was in the tax bill?
Mr. O’Malley increased the sales tax from 5 percent to 6 percent, the corporate income tax from 7 percent to 8.25 percent and the tobacco tax by $1. He also reworked Maryland’s personal income-tax structure to increase exemptions for low- and middle-income earners and increase taxes for upper-income earners.
A pack of cigarettes in Maryland is already nearly $5/pack. Jack it up to $6, you fools – most Marylanders only need to drive a few miles in almost any direction and buy them cheaper. Raising the price $10/carton more makes it much more attractive to buy them out of State. How much revenue ya got then, chump? The same with sales tax.
Well, ya’all voted for them. I’ve already started looking for a place in Virginia – maybe West Virginia.
Crossposted at Red Maryland
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Happy Holidays, Maryland. Now bend over.
In the wee hours of the morning, the Maryland legislature stuck it to Maryland taxpayers with a $1.4B tax hike according to the Washington Post;
Before adjourning at 2:36 a.m., lawmakers had sent two bills needed to execute a referendum on slots to Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), as well as another two tax bills and a measure to offer health insurance to 100,000 poor and uninsured adults without Medicaid coverage.
Lawmakers also approved legislation directing O’Malley to trim spending in next year’s budget by about $550 million, including slowing the growth in education spending.
“You’ve got to give Governor O’Malley a lot of credit for going out and, in essence, leading with his chin,” said House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel), who advised against holding the high-stakes session. “The governor took it all on his shoulders, and the legislature pretty much followed. . . . We’ve basically, in my estimate, taken a full legislative year of work and condensed it into 20 days.”
Yeah, real fricken brave. How hard is it to just tell taxpayers to pay more rather than skim off the fat and waste in the budget?
Legislation expected to be given final passage before adjournment included increases in sales, corporate income, tobacco and vehicle titling taxes, as well as an overhaul of the personal income tax system that would result in high-end earners paying more.
To their credit, Maryland Republicans aren’t mincing their words;
“Common sense and reason went out the window just to give the governor a victory,” said Senate Minority Leader David R. Brinkley (R-Frederick). “I think this whole thing has been a debacle, and taxpayers are stuck holding the bill.”
Well, Marylanders that’s what we get – toss out a Republican governor who had a year-over-year surplus in the budget and bring in a known incompetent weasel from Baltimore who has squandered that surplus and adds “a measure to offer health insurance to 100,000 poor and uninsured adults without Medicaid coverage”. I’d like to see a roster of these poor souls.
Time for me to move to Virginia, I suppose.
UPDATE: Tons of thanks to Michele Malkin for linking to me again. Updated story posted here.