April 25, 2004
A dreadful tax plan
Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley's tax plan seems to go out of its way to display ossified thinking on public finance.
Let's tax people, the mayor's line of reasoning seems to run, where it really hurts — home heating and light and basic telephone service — with no effort to cut frills in the budget, such as the plan to offer tests for erstwhile firefighters 24 times as often.
The Baltimore Sun (April 25, 2004) reports:
One proposal would impose a 4 percent energy tax on manufacturers, residents, churches, nonprofit organizations and state and federal office buildings. Another would create a $3.50 monthly fee for cell and conventional phones with billing addresses in the city, and a third would raise the fees people pay when they buy real estate.For a household with a $150 monthly gas and electric bill, plus a cell phone and conventional phone, O'Malley's proposed tax increases would cost about $114 a year.
The mayor proceeds to pull the oldest stunt in the local government book of war: threatening to cut first popular programs, such as police and recycling, rather than more ancillary programs.
And taxing energy? When the cost of natural gas and electricity has been soaring steadily? I personally have been frantic to lessen our energy use for years now, caulking every seam in our 1848 house, adding Styrofoam plugs to our skylights, installing ceiling fans (new installations -- what a chore -- when you do it yourself to save $$), pulling the ducts in our basement to find crawlspace air leaks and then sealing the duct seams. All these tasks were guided by an infrared energy audit of our property.
We keep our winter thermostat at 65 degrees (!) and we are paying a lot of money to be not very comfortable. I bet this is the case across much of the city.
At some point, O'Malley's energy tax is going to send city residents already struggling with the energy costs of running a city rowhome (with their impossibly different microclimates between the ground and top floors) not just out of Baltimore but down to the Carolinas or elsewhere in the Sun Belt.
Then there's the attempt to further load up our phone bill with yet another line item having nothing to do with service. Over the years, our monthly plan has gone from $15 to $30 so as to fund all manner of dubious taxes and services for the ostensible poor. If the mayor proceeds with this tax, I will be calling Verizon to change our plan, getting rid of Answercall, most likely. Something has got to give in our family budget and it will be that. So we shall see in micro form the way higher taxes exert their drag on the economy.
- posted by jbelliveau at 10:39 AM in The Neighborhood
