In a slick letter published in the Baltimore Sun this week “By Gary Comegys” that was surely drafted by some political consultant, the tax scheme being perpetrated on the public by the Maryland Municipal League is presented in a manner that uses the loss of state funding for local governments as a foil for trying to get state “enabling legislation” for new types of city taxes – which are cleverly called “new revenue tools” in that letter. The Comegys’ game plan is to get the towns and cities to pass resolutions begging the General Assembly to do their bidding next year.
Comegys’ mouthpiece suggests that these new taxes might include a sales tax on deeds and mortgages, energy consumption (gas & electric service) and telecommunications (telephone, etc., bills) but does not mention others that the “MML” has on its wish list, including a “local option” (“piggyback”) tax of one or more kinds, and a food (“restaurant”) tax. Those and other taxes not mentioned in Comegys’ letter are specified in an earlier letter that he sent to towns and cities across Maryland.
Not mentioned in either of Comegys’ letters is the burden that these taxes would impose on businesses and residents in Maryland. Where’s the “T-Party” when we really need it? And why has this scheme and Comegys’ leading role in it not been reported in the Daily Times?
17 comments:
This idea was hatched by the State's Lodges and has been shared at all local levels in the Lodge system.
At the Wor-Wic forum last night, several candidates for the legislature in Annapolis said they might support Comegys' plan to give the cities like Salisbury broad power to impose new sales taxes on meals, electric bills, etc.
Please give us their names so we can vote aganinst them.
11:08 -
Mathias!
Mike McDermott said he would not vote for any more town taxes - period!
Others were wishy-washy.
Maybe you all should be following the money and asking where is all the tax revenue that is supposed to be returned to municipalities going? Why should municipalities be forced to raise revenue from other sources because they are being cheated out of their "own" tax money? I'd like to hear OMalleys non-answer to that one...
Politicians....spend spend spend and waste waste waste. Then spend their spare time either running for re-election or dreaming up NEW ways to take our money. Impress me once....just ONCE. CUT spending.
Let's scrap "Bubba" and substitute "Tax & Spend" Comegys, a retired state bureaucrat whose carrer was spent at the public trough.
If they spent the highway tax money on the roads instead of buying land with it our roads would be in better shape. this is at the state level.
Let the little towns give up their charters and then they wouldn't have to worry about being broke. That would stop a lot of waste.
Wicomico County has cut its budget by almost $15 million in the past 2 years. And cut it without closing the ferries or the parks or cutting funding to volunteer firefighters.
Our government , from the city to the feds , are corrupt.
What can we do about it?
Soon people will just go over the edge and the crap will fly.
Comegy , is a joke , I don't feel sorry for him at all. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away , good by Gary!
This was snuck thru 2 counsel meetings ago and approved for Salisbury. Delmar also approved this proposal. Why was this not made public? This is going to effect everyone and your voices should be heard. Come to the LORA meet and greet on October 21st from 6-8 pm. Talk directly to Jim Mathias and Rudy Cane. Face to face, yes or no, do they support this???!!! I for one will not be sitting by quietly and wait for this to get passed by the state. This is a deal breaker for my vote,period!!! They tax me now at 6%, then want to tax me again and again and again for electric, food, telecommunications ect.
I say stop paving new roads, and making other roads suffer till they crumble... Just fix the old ones first... When you make new roads and forget the old ones, there will be a time when that new one will have to be fixed as well, and while we don't need anymore "new" roads... land should be conserved... we will be like china soon, where you can only go up in the air with buildings...
If any of you complaining are voting for O'Malley, then just stop complaing. By doing that, you are supporting these cuts, and the money the state STOLE from the locals. They have dropped funding to under 2 million dollars IN TOTAL to municipalities, but don't have a problem spending 35 million on slots. The same Board of Public Works that voted on the cuts to the locals voted on the slot funding . This board consists of 3 people. O'malley, franchot, and knopp. If you support any of these people, then you support these cuts. I urge you to call your municipalities and tell them what services you would like to do without if they aren't supposed to find ways to maintain their roads. How about we cut the police, how about we just let the roads fall apart and all of those of you with the nice cars can complain. The state is handcuffing the towns and you all are mad at the towns instead of the state.
12:24 has it right!!!!
I was originally upset when I found out Terry Cohen supported this.
But I talked to her. It's not that she supports doing all those taxes. Most she said she did not. She supported it for the flexibility and to get funds reinstated to the cities.
She said this is a request from the cities, not a bill to make it so.
I'm not sure I understood this part of what she said, but something like if there was an excise tax on development we wouldn't have to do complicated impact fees and money could be used on maintenance. I hope I got that right.
I think the reasoning was that the state cut the cities a lot and this was to either get the funding back, let the cities decide taxes for themselves or both.
I sure understand why people would be mad about this. If you give government the power to do something it will. But we defeated that ridiculous food tax that Barrie Tilghman wanted.
Cohen has been very good about our money, so no way am I going to hold this vote against her. Also if it wasn't for her and Debbie Campbell, we would not have got even the four extra cops on the street we got.
Get those three dumbbells off the council and maybe we can get somewhere.
3:54
It was not supposed to be public. It was decided in secrecy by the community leaders.
Isn't it obvious that Bubba never had this original thought? Bubba is TOLD what to say and present in meetings and then how to vote. Bubba is a part of the Lodge and as such is a tool of the community leaders.
These leaders do not wish to be exposed and will not allow their identity to become public. They are the richest people in each small (and large) town all across America. Their Lodges are networked together so that these types of legislative actions take place everywhere at the same time - without fan fare.
The answer is easy. If they starting charging these taxes, I will just leave the state and go to Delaware or Virginia dine out or make my purchases. I already purchase items over 100 dollars in Delaware. I'm only 5 miles from the state line. Why buy a Tv or Lawn mower in MD if the price is the same in DE? Let the free market rule! People are already suffering now with job losses and job cuts! The state is kicking people while they are down! I say have the state return to us the roads and highway money that they have stolen from us for Baltimore City and other Urban projects outside of the Eastern Shore!
If Terry wants specific taxes then say the specific tax. Don't bundle it up with other taxes so anyone at any time (When the present counsel members are long gone) can make these decissions about the food tax, energy tax, telecommunications tax ect. We need to fight this now and yell out to the ones " I AM MAD LIKE HECK AND I WILL NOT TAKE THIS ANYMORE "
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