Maryland politicians see themselves as quite clever.  Their thinly veiled ruse of raising taxes and fees in non-election years fools no one who pays taxes and pays attention.  Governor Moore’s commitment to not raise taxes and fee in 2026 attempts to mislead the voters (most of whom do not pay attention enough to not be fooled).  The 2025 massive tax and fee increases yield a considerable revenue benefit in 2026 at expense of taxpayers/voters.  Yet, a 2027 structural deficit well in excess of a billion dollars must be dealt with to meet his constitutional requirement to propose a balanced budget.  In fact, as has been reported by The Sun (Will Md. Officials address billions in fiscal deficits?), cumulative projected structural deficits of nearly $10 billion lie ahead through fiscal year 2030 because spending forecasts exceed revenue projections.  Because even raising taxes again next year will not be enough to address the projected deficit, cuts to the state’s most expensive programs, i.e. “the Blueprint” and Medicaid, must wait until after the election so the same serial government spending offenders are reelected.

The governor is in a race.  Not just a race to keep his job and give propulsion to his political ambitions beyond Maryland. A race to keep this incredibly leaky ship afloat until his gamble on high tech industry and jobs potentially bears fruit. It is not a rational gamble. This is occurring as Maryland ranks among the top in states with the most wealthy and business owners fleeing for states with more friendly tax structures, energy costs and government regulation.  It is a gamble where the odds are against him.  Even if his offerings of incentives to entice entrepreneurs to the state is successful, it takes years for fledgling new tech enterprises to grow rapidly enough to bring critical mass of professional level income taxes and corporate taxes to materially affect state tax revenues.  All the while, as the state’s unfriendly tax structures on high income earners and high-tech businesses diminish those same revenues at a rate exceedingly difficult to overcome without massive further tax increases and painful budget cuts. Maryland is far behind its neighbors like Virginia whose thoroughly robust, high-tech economy is generating state budget surpluses producing tax rebates to citizens and an equally robust jobs market.

It brings to mind the story of the ten friends that go to dinner nightly together and divvy up the bill by the tax rate of each diner.  The diner with the highest tax rate begins by paying nearly 60% of the bill.  When the restaurateur offers them a 20% discount for their loyalty, the question arises as to how to share the discount.  They again agree to do it by tax rate.  When the highest taxpayer receives most of the discount, the group gangs up on the high taxpayer because of his enviable income.  The highest taxpayer, offended and abused, no longer joins the group for dinner.  When the group dined the next evening, they were horrified to learn that they must come up with over 50% of the bill they had not yet had to pay.

Members of the Democrat party, consistently believe the most successful among us never pay their fair share of taxes and fees.  Their recent tax increases were targeting Maryland’s most successful citizens.  Before this direct assault on success, Maryland’s tax structure was already among the highest for a wide swath of taxpayers.  The completely insulting increase in fees, lifting Maryland to absurdly high levels of counter-progressive “taxes” by another name, adversely affects virtually every citizen.  Those fees are literally several times the rates in neighboring states.  As the informed flee, the state is left with an increasing majority of voters who recklessly machine vote Democrats into office believing they are their best chance for a fair deal.  At some point one would hope that this ongoing bludgeoning of the uninformed would foment descent.

Shame on the governor and the legislature. Shame on them for believing that, yet again, the Democrat majority in the state, many who just do not pay enough attention to the facts (as politicians count on) will blindly vote them back into office.  Their fiscal offenses are just below the level necessary for even the most uninformed voter to revolt.  Republicans do not have all the answers.  But, at some point, the desire to spend and spend, in an attempt to make everyone happy, will crash into the fiscal wall.  Meaningful spending cuts will have to be made short of a tax policy that craters the state economy leading to an increasingly violent downward spiral that is just beyond view but looms ever present.   Many who have benefited mighty from the flow of state funds must be told to seek alternatives.  Many Democrats are incredulous but, the party is over.