Last year Maryland had a Republican governor, Robert Ehrlich, and a $billion year over year surplus and a “rainy day” fund. Now, less than nine months after Democrat Martin O’Malley was sworn in as governor of Maryland – and during a substantial economic boom in the State, surpluses and “rainey day” funds are gone. In fact, the Democrat governor has called for a 20% increase in the state’s sales tax, an increase in income taxes and plans to tax the poor with legalized gambling.<\/p>\n
Marylanders are acting surprised that a Democrat would raise taxes – well, most of them, anyway. Yesterday they had a protest in Annapolis, the State Capitol reports the Washington Examiner<\/a>;<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153No new taxes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was the rallying cry Monday of demonstrations by taxpayer, conservative and Republican groups around the State House.<\/p>\n The relatively modest turnouts of about 300 people came just hours before Gov. Martin O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Malley was set to give a short pep talk to a special session of the General Assembly he called to raise a series of taxes.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to stand up and oppose every stinking tax,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Del. Donna Stifler, R-Harford, typifying the comments of dozens of GOP lawmakers.<\/p>\n Stifler said she was getting 80 to 100 e-mails and phone calls a day opposing any tax increases.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And the guilty white people were there to counter-protest;<\/p>\n Progressive Maryland, an organization of liberal social and labor groups, mounted its own quickly called rally to counter the Republican theme and support the governor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tax package.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We believe the governor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s package represents by far the best deal for working families,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Sean Dobson, executive director of the Progressive Maryland.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n “Working families”. That’s the code phrase for non-working families. When Democrats claim something is good for “working families”, that means they’re going to screw the living shit out of working families. Paying taxes for 40 years has taught me that.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n