Corporate Welfare in Maryland

At this time of severe cutbacks in government funding for food stamps, early childhood education, and meals on wheels, some Maryland legislators are hard at work looking out for the welfare of one of the world's wealthiest corporations. Under a bill rapidly advancing in the legislature of that state, the Lockheed Martin Corporation will have the taxes on its luxurious Montgomery County hotel and conference center reduced by approximately $450,000 a year and will also receive a $1.4 million refund for the period since 2010.

Lockheed Martin would seem to be an unlikely recipient of this lavish government handout, at least on the basis of need. Indeed, it is one of the world's largest business enterprises, with sales that reached $47 billion in 2012. It is also America's largest defense contractor, and in fiscal 2012 its U.S. military sales topped $29 billion.

The effort to shovel millions of additional taxpayer dollars to this giant corporation goes back to 2010, when the state legislature passed a bill that exempted Lockheed Martin's hotel guests from paying the state hotel tax. Then, in 2011, the company asked to be exempted from the 7 percent hotel tax levied by Montgomery County, a suburb of Washington, DC. Accordingly, the Montgomery County Council reviewed a bill that would change the definition of a hotel to exempt Lockheed Martin from this tax, too. Nevertheless, after citizen testimony at a public hearing, the County Council refused to rewrite the law. As a result, patrons of the hotel, grandly named the Center for Leadership Excellence, are forced to pay a lodging tax, just like patrons of all the other hotels in the county.
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