Martin O'Malley's Tax Alphabet Soup

The sheer number of tax and fee increases under Governor O'Malley is astonishing.  I could make several bowls of tax and fee alphabet soup, but decided to make just one.  Amazingly I was able to find a tax for almost every letter of the alphabet.  Which one is your favorite tax or fee increase?

A - alcoholic beverage tax increase of 50%

B - Birth Certificate fee increased 100%

C - Certification fee for vehicles increased by 100%

D - Death Certificate fee increased by 100%

E - Electricity rates increased to subsidize off-shore wind farms

F - Fishing license increase of 100%

G - Gas tax that is regressive to re-fund the Transportation Trust Fund that he depleted

H - Handgun licensing fee

I - Income tax increase to middle-class Marylanders

J - we're not Joking, this is a lot of taxes.

K - estimated number of people Killed in Maryland since O'Malley became governor is 2,500.  That's 2,500 people no-longer paying taxes.

L - license plate fee increase of 100% for vanity plates

M - motor vehicle dealer processing charge

N - Non-cigarette tax increase of 100% on snuff and cigars

O - Out-of-State Attorney admission fee

P - property tax increase

Q - Quit taxing us so much or we're moving to Delaware.

R - Rain Tax

S - Sales tax increase of 20% when he took office

T - toll increases of 33% at bridges and tunnels in Maryland

U -unclogged - 29,579 miles of roads that have not been unclogged despite O'Malley claiming he supports investments in public transportation.  No new public transportation projects have been completed since he became governor.

V - Vehicle Registration Surcharge

W - Wholesale tax to gasoline that was newly applied

X - x-businesses in Maryland total 3,500 since O'Malley became Governor.

Y - Yikes, more taxes are on the way if Tony Brown becomes Govenor.

Z - Zebra tax - 200% increase in tax to transport zebras across state lines. (not real)

Martin O'Malley - Let's Raise the Sales Tax AGAIN!!!

Martin O'Malley. What a guy. There's not a tax hike he doesn't like. Alcohol tax. Sales tax. Another sales tax. Thumb tacks.

It's really frustrating to hear him talk lately. WBAL radio keeps playing a clip of him saying to the effect that we really don't have any other choice but to raise taxes because we've already cut over $6 Billion from the budget over the last few years and you get what you pay for. I wish the tax payers of Maryland got what they paid for.

The truth is, Martin O'Malley has NOT cut the budget by $6 billion. At least he hasn't cut the budget with regard to the amount of money the state spent the previous years with the exceptin of a $200 million cut between 2010 and 2011. But we're talking billions of dollars here, so millions in nearly insignificant. Here is a list of the total state spending (as reported on Red Maryland) on O'Malley's watch.

2008: 29.4 billion

2009: 30.7 billion

2010: 32.2 billion

2011. 32.0 billion

2012: 34.2 billion

I don't see any $6 billion decreases here. So where is this phantom $6 billion coming from? I suspect that every year Governor Martin "Leapin' Liar" O'Malley came up with a wish-list of the billions of dollars that he wants to spend, then cuts his own list and calls that 'cutting the budget'. "I want to spend $45 billion this year, but I'll reduce what I want to spend to $35 billion. Now I can say that I cut the budget by $9 billion!!!" Does that sound like his kind of crap?

Now O'Malley is running our of revenue to spend on his pet projects, so he wants to increase the state sales tax for the second time during his tenure as governor. I don't think any sitting governor of Maryland has ever raised the sales tax twice. What a wonderful dubious honor, Guv'nah!

O'Malley defends his massive tax increase proposals by saying that Maryland has the 40th lowest state sales tax in the Union. However, of those states with higher sales taxes, Washington, Nevada, Wyoming, South Dakota, Texas, Alaska, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and Florida have no state income tax.

Additionally, according to the Tax Foundation, Marylanders are already burdened with one of the highest overall tax rates in the country, surpassed only by New Jersey (11.8%), New York (11.7%), and Connecticut (11.1%).

Now comes the best part. Martin O'Malley will spin his latest massive tax increase on the struggling middle class and poor working people of Maryland by saying it's "a penny increase". I had an long-standing battle with the liberal pundits on Wikipedia during the last state sales tax increase. I would write, "Anne Kaiser voted to increase the sales tax by 20%". It would then be changed to "Anne Kaiser voted to increase the sales tax by 1 penny." Technically, my statement is more correct. To make the second statement correct, you would need to add "for each dollar spent".

Now Martin O'Malley wants to "technically" raise the state sales tax by another 16.7%. The two sales tax increases will amount to a 40% increase in the sales tax since he's been governor. Liberal cannot argue with the math. But as they say, don't let the facts get in the way of good tax increase.

It's All In the Numbers

My daughter started learning multiplication in her math class this year. Tonight, she had an assignment to come up with items that are arranged in numeric groups. For example, soda can come in packs of six, yogurt generally comes in packs of 4, there are 7 days in a week, etc. You get the idea.

I tried to help her with some ideas, but my wife objected to my contributions. Here they are:

0 - the number of public debates held by the Maryland General Assembly concerning Martin O'Malley's recent record-breaking tax increase.

1 - the number of political parties that actually have a say in the government in the state of Maryland

2 - the number of Republican governors in the state of Maryland over the past 40 years.

3 - the number of Baltimore City Public School students that can actually read

4 - the number of people that have confidence in Baltimore City School Superintendent Dr. Andres Alonso after he said that students in middle school are Constitutional people. (What the hell does that mean anyway???)

5 - the number of times the average Maryland resident wishes he could punch Martin O'Malley in the nose for being such a condescending, lying, snake in the grass.

6 - the percentage of the new sales tax that Martin O'Malley arrogantly somehow thinks only affects the rich people.

7 - the average number of days in a week that someone is shot in Baltimore City

8 - the number of months Martin O'Malley hoped that the State Board of Education would delay the vote for the State Schools Superintendent so that he could replace the board members with his own schlepps and he could then fire Nancy Grasmick. Instead, they voted to extend Nancy Grasmick's contract by another 4 years. He got so mad that he broke his looking glass on his desk.

9 - the number of middle school students that beat the crap out of a 26 year-old woman on a safe Baltimore City bus.

Good News Everybody!

The doctor called and I don't have mono, though I may be in bed with one of her cousins, which outside of sicknesses is one of my favorite situations.

So I read another 50-75 pages of Living Biblically. This book is fantastic. I really enjoy this dude's sense of humor. I highly recommend it. Hopefully I can finish it by the end of the month. Now that I'm back at work, my reading will subside to about 15-20 pages per night.

I slept a lot again yesterday, which is what I hear you should do when your sick. I also continued to watch lots of movies. I watched Fargo. Someone needs to help me with that one. Why was Jerry Lundegaard trying to get the money in the first place? It that even significant? Overall just a goofy movie. I also watched the Princess Bride. My friends who grew up in the 80's say this is one of their all-time favorites. Perhaps I should get some new friends. It was okay, but mostly hokey. Vizzini was funny. And everyone loves Andre the Giant.

I also watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. It was very funny for the first hour. The second hour fell into that "we need to tie this together and finish the movie" drama.

I also filled my day on Wikipedia. I decided to go through all of the Democrats in the Maryland General Assembly and add legislative notes to their bios indicating which ones voted in favor of raising the sales tax by 20% and which ones voted in favor of allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition. Apparently Delegate Anne Kaiser didn't take to it too well. I assume it was her changing the bio because the changes made were inconsistent to wikipedian's changes. Anyway, my changes were undone, but because it's Wikipedia, I get notification of changes and I went back and re-added it. Ha!

Anyway, I'm back at work today. Boo...

O'Malley to the Rescue!

If you've been keeping up with the news, then you're quite familiar with O'Malley's daily tax proposal. These tax increases include the following:

1) Increase the sales tax by 20% - this is a regressive tax that will slam the poor and middle class hard. However, since O'Malley is so pretty, he knows that you'll still vote for him in the next election.

2) Increase the cigarette tax. As we know, the working poor live and breathe (literally) on their cigs, hon. Now, instead of choosing between eating lunch or buying a pack of cigs, the poor and unintelligent will get to choose between their evening 40 & Funions and their cigs. Unfortunately for O'Malley's rhetoric, most rich people are also smart and know that smoking is stupid - just like O'Malley.

Ironically, their are ads on the radio narrated by a really obnoxious mommy-liberal advocating for the increase in the cig tax because it will reduce smoking and generate more revenue for health care. How can smoking less generate more revenue when you're not buying as much? Oh, yeah. That dumb Law of Supply and Demand is a farce.

3) O'Malley wants to increase the tax on vehicle registration titles by 20%. Again, this is a regressive tax that will hit the poor and working middle class harder than the rich. Consider this - rich people are more likely to pay cash for their vehicles. Therefore, they will cover the 20% increase up front. However, the poor and hard working families of Maryland are more likely to finance the car, including the vehicle tax, thus subjecting the 20% increase to an even bigger increase once they factor in the interest.

4) We caught glimpses of O'Malley whining in some family's kitchen claiming that these "table talks" will help brainwash the voters and convince them that these taxes are a good thing.

Another tax introduced was a gas tax. Since gas isn't already expensive enough (and much higher in Maryland than in many other states), he thought it would be a great idea to charge more for the gas. And who uses more gas - the rich or the poor? Surprisingly, they use the same!!!

So who is more affected? The working poor families. Now families will struggle to decide if they should fill their car with gas or buy food, medicine, or diapers for their children. This is definitely a regressive tax. How are those rich people fairing so far? Not too bad!

5) Marty also wants to increase the income tax. This tax, he claims, will be progressive. Interesting choice of words. How can taking more money from people imply progress? Anyway, the rich have the ability to hire CPA's who can hide their income. Rich people can incorporate and have the company pay expenses for them. They don't have to take a salary and be subject to the income tax.

Furthermore, if you have a lot of money, that doesn't necessarily mean that you have high income. You can be living off of the dividends and account balances of your fortune. And with higher taxes, what's the incentive for investing their money? We all know that investing money helps to create jobs, but that's counter intuitive to O'Malley's new Socialist world order.

So in the end, hard working 2-income families are the ones that are going to pony-up paying for unnecessary services that help get politicians reelected.

6) The Slippery Leprechaun also wants to restructure the "antiquated" tax structure. Currently, only goods are taxed. He also wants to tap that treasure of services. This will help generated millions more in tax revenue that he can use to force more government programs down our throats or send to the Baltimore City School system so that they can lose it again. (please ignore the studies that show that miserable failing city schools receive more money per student than successful schools in the suburbs)

7) Companies are a pain in the butt in the state of Maryland and O'Malley will help change that. He has a plan to drive them to Delaware. He wants to increase the corporate tax from 7% to 8%, an increase of over 14% in that tax.

These evil companies are making too much money and the government wants its share of it. Disregarding all those millions of people that these companies have on the payrolls, it would be best if the state could get them to leave and we could transition these workers to government payrolls where they could keep a better eye on things.

We all know that the government is much more efficient in running services and companies. Just think about it. They could more easily calculate projected income taxes on their $45,000 calculators while sitting in their $75,000 chairs.

8) I heard that while he was sitting in the garage smoking dope with his naked guy friends, O'Malley came up with a great new idea - let's introduce slots in the state of Maryland!

O'Malley made this announcement the other day as one of his new plans. When WBAL's Scott Wychoff asked him why he opposed slots when he ran against Governor Bob Ehrlich, who was in favor of slots, O'Malley quipped, "That's political history. We're only interested in the future."

O'Malley reportedly then continued removing jars of KY jelly from the shelves of local stores.

One person even stated that he mumbled under his breath, "This is going to hurt the middle class so bad that it'll bring tears to their eyes and they won't be able to sit down for month!!! Moo-Ha-ha-ha!!!"

However, there is always a silver lining in every grey cloud. Unfortuantely for the people of Maryland, this silver lining is the toxic heavy metal called mercury. O'Malley states that he wants to reduce property taxes for the average families. His liberal math, though, is suspicious. The property tax will be reduced for 70% of the people, but it will be increased for the other 65%. This middle class is getting stiffed for this bill and you know it.

People who voted for O'Malley, you're getting what you deserve. Hold on tight to that bed post when you get your next tax statement.

Disease Outbreak at Schaefer Tower

A person working in the William Donald Schaefer tower in downtown Baltimore has contracted Legionnaires' disease, a deadly bacterial disease affecting the lungs. More than 1000 employees from various Maryland government agencies work in the tower. Fortunately, the person is being treated and has been released from the hospital.

Link to the article in the Baltimore Sun:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-worker0823,0,3584878.story?coll=bal_tab01_layout

Fortunately, Governor Martin O'Malley has come to our rescue and told us that the tower is safe. Rumors spread quickly that he arrived at a press conference donning his red cape and Superman Underoos. However, this rumor was refuted when a young lady said that he was allowing the women to squeeze his biceps when he took off his shirt. Neither statement can be confirmed, but the O'Malley press office has not refuted the story either.

Details of the outbreak should become available later in the day or tomorrow. There has been no confirmation of the source of the outbreak, though I suspect that the Baltimore Sun's Jennifer Skalka and Michael Dressens will blame former Governor Robert Ehrlich. They will site Ehrlich's inability to increase the gas tax and the sales tax caused a revenue shortage that compromised the health, safety, and protection of our hard-working loyal government workers.