Typical Progressives
Leave it to the yahoos at Progressive Maryland (comically described by the Sun as a “Worker Advocacy Group”) to suggest new and creative ways to stick it to middle and working class Marylanders:
The ideas: Leave in place the million-dollar tax bracket, which is due to expire in 2011; raise the alcohol tax by a dime per drink and earmark those funds for health care; increase the gas tax by 15 cents per gallon; enact combined reporting for corporations, which would prevent them from sheltering profits in other states; and “modernize” the sales tax by taxing services in addition to goods.
Each one of these tax increases will have a negative impact on our state that will disproportionately harm working Marylanders:
- Extension of the million-dollar tax bracket will force more Maryland capital out of our state, reducing the potential pool for business development and reducing the state’s pool of taxable income;
- The Alcohol Tax as a “dime-a-drink” tax will disproportionately impact lower class workers who choose to drink, but forcing the same “regressive” tax increase on those who consume alcoholic beverages regardless of the price of the drink, to say nothing of the other impacts such a tax would have.
- The Gas Tax increase may be the most crippling tax increase of all; not only would a 63% increase in the gas tax raise the price of tank of fuel for a 12-gallon car by $1.80 per tank drastically affect every family who lives in Maryland, but such a tax increase would have far reaching effects on the price of goods and services here in Maryland, which would be necessarily increased by businesses to offset the higher costs of delivering these goods to stores and to consumers.
- Combined Reporting for corporations may, as they put it “prevent them from sheltering profits in other states”. It may also force them to relocate their business out of Maryland and put Marylanders out of work; as Mark noted in 2007 an Ernst & Young study noted that combined reporting would cost the state 18.3 jobs lost for every $10 million in revenue
- Finally, any “modernization” of the sales tax through expansion to the taxation of services will face similar impacts; higher costs to consumers, higher costs to businesses, and fewer opportunities for job creation of service oriented businesses.
So what you have is your typical progressive claptrap; raising taxes and hurting middle and working class Marylanders in order to fund their special interest projects. It’s hard to believe that these folks have the chutzpah to continue to claim to be for the “working man” any longer….
