Brown Camp Clouds the True Story

The latest attack ad from the fledgling Anthony Brown campaign attacks Larry Hogan or being opposed to universal pre-K. Hogan rightly notes that universal pre-K is something that the state of Maryland just can’t afford right now.

But the spot also attacks Hogan saying he would “spend twice as on huge corporate giveaways every year, putting corporations ahead of kids.”

Unsurprisingly, the Brown Campaign is again being dishonest with the facts.

The citation made in the spot is for House Bill 170 from the 2014 General Assembly the session. The bill, whose primary sponsor was Delegate Kelly Schulz, would drop the corporate tax rate from 8.25% to 6.00%. The Bill’s fiscal note from the Department of Legislative Services says that General Fund tax receipts would fall by $272.1 million in Fiscal Year 2015, with smaller decreases in General Fund revenues through FY 2019. This Fiscal Note, of course, assumes that revenues would not increase with more productivity and more business development with a lower corporate income tax rate.

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But the Brown Campaign is clearly ignoring other work done by the very same Department of Legislative Services on Corporate Tax reduction which notes:

Unless the budget is in structural surplus, any sizeable tax revenue reduction would need to be offset by some mix of ongoing spending reductions or additional revenue.

Anybody who has been paying attention knows that the hallmark of the Hogan Campaign has been to reduce spending come out of Annapolis. Merely cutting the $1.75 billion in waste fraud and abuse would be enough of an offset to cover the reduction in the corporate tax rate.

But special attention needs to go to Brown’s claim that Larry Hogan would be “putting corporations ahead of kids.” Because that has been the signature move of the O’Malley-Brown Administration. As Mark has noted, Brown has helped the State give away millions in politically connected corporations during his time as Lt. Governor. In fact, according to O’Malley-Brown data their Administration has given away just about enough in corporate subsidies to have already funded universal pre-K.

If Anthony Brown really wanted universal pre-K, the state could have already had it. If only he hadn’t put politically-connected corporations ahead of kids.



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