Change Maryland On House Passage Of O'Malley's Fuel Tax Increase

Annapolis - As expected, the full House voted today to approve motor fuel taxes, and the Senate will now take up the measure before the General Assembly adjourns on April 8. Change Maryland Chairman Larry Hogan released the following statement:
"A proposal as unpopular as this one must be hidden from public view and carefully timed to avoid news cycles. In fact, this proposal is so unpopular that the Governor announced it in the evening, the first hearings were held on a Friday afternoon the same day as the death penalty vote, House passage is on a Friday afternoon, and final votes are taking place in the closing weeks of this legislative session.
"Just as unpopular is Governor O'Malley's record of raising taxes and fees. There are currently 32 enacted measures that remove $2.3 billion out of the economy annually. Marylander's are now faced with the prospect of paying another $800 million on top of the $2.3 billion a year we’re already paying in new taxes if this passes the Senate without substantive changes from the Governor's proposal. 
"Last week, House Ways and Means committee leadership was missing altogether. The majority on the committee performed a rush job on hearings, and their rubber-stamp mentality failed the public miserably. 

"Committee leaders provided yet another platform for the big county executives, who time and again have pleaded for more revenues that help their urban areas. Missing from this were elected officials from rural parts of the state. Instead, we heard the tired argument that we need more transportation money to attract the FBI headquarters to Prince George's County. Here we go again - relying on the federal government instead of putting in place policies that attract Fortune 500 companies and small businesses back to our state. Moreover, nobody at the FBI is conditioning the move on Maryland increasing gasoline taxes, and this argument is simply pathetic.
"We are approaching the one-year anniversary of when the Transportation secretary first announced her resignation. The Governor has had three General Assembly sessions in which to get a permanent secretary confirmed and who could have possibly avoided the bumbling performance we saw from the acting secretary in the Ways and Means hearing. Basic questions such as funding bridge repairs and realigning infrastructure investments based on how Marylander's actually travel were met with bureaucratic non-answers.

"I am also disgusted that top elected officials would compare Virginia's enacted transportation revenues as an excuse to further tax Marylander's. Our tax code is a self-inflicted wound, which is why Virginia bests Maryland in every single economic performance metric there is.

"As for the bill itself, the so-called lock box provision is worthless and it should not even be called that. Indexing the existing excise tax to inflation guarantees never-ending increases, and nothing has been done to stop the distorted spending levels on mass transit.

"This bill is a penalty that Marylanders will pay during every trip to a gas station for electing people to office who put their own interests ahead of theirs."