Tone Deaf in Queen Anne’s County

I live in Queen Anne’s County, which is facing a $17 million budget deficit. The proposed solution by the the county’s Citizens Budget Committee is to reduce spending by $5.8 million and RAISE taxes. The committees is recommending a increase in the real property tax rate t0 $0.87 per $100 of assessment from $0.77, and an increase in the county’s piggy back tax from 2.8% to 3.2%. This would put QAC’s income tax rate on par with PG, Montgomery, and Howard–the most expensive counties in the state in which to live.

Forget for a moment that the committee did not provide the public with an itemized budget to review only an opaque summary, there are more cuts that can be made especially in the education budget, and that there are non-tax revenue options the county is not pursuing–the committee authors published a condescending executive summary, in which they saw fit to preemptively insult opponents of their proposed tax increases. Page seven from the committee’s executive summary:

More on the alternatives to the recommendations later, but the committee authors did themselves no favors by insulting tax increase opponents, who possess ideas to solve the budget problem without doing on the backs of county taxpayers.