At first glance, Jeff Hazard would seem to be a tailor-made opponent of the $670 million tax increase that cleared the state House of Delegates last week.
One day soon, the 30-year-old Baltimore man will probably earn a big enough salary at his corporate job to see dollars sliced from his paycheck with the higher tax bracket lawmakers have in mind for well-off Marylanders.
What’s more, Hazard and his wife, Kristie, are expecting a baby any day. So they will be shelling out a load of money, plus sales tax, on all kinds of new purchases.
But that’s OK, he says. He is against slot machines and thinks the wealthy have an obligation to help public schools and the poor. So he is willing to pay for his principles.
“The hit to me doesn’t seem like it’s going to be that much compared to the benefit it could make across the board,” says Hazard, whose monthly bills include a mortgage, car payments and college loans. “I prefer something like that over the slot machines.”
A three-hour drive northwest, Gene Carithers, 76, of Cumberland differs. A retired assembly line worker who lives on pension and Social Security checks, he says the state takes more and more of his money with less and less to show for it.
He is still fuming about Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s proposed $30-a-year “flush tax” on sewer use so is not embracing the prospect of higher sales and income taxes.
“Everything is going up, especially around here,” he says.
In interviews across the state, Maryland voters expressed a range of views on the tax package — one of the largest in state history — that House Speaker Michael E. Busch is attempting to push through the legislature. The measure contains $1 billion in new sales and income taxes, offset in part by a proposed decrease of more than $300 million in state property taxes.
Some of those interviewed said slot machines are a better source of money for struggling public schools. Others said the state takes enough of its residents’ money and should focus on cutting wasteful programs.
The strongest support for the tax increases was in Baltimore and the Washington suburbs, where some said they are willing to bear the burden if it means keeping slots out of Maryland.
Busch, an Anne Arundel County Democrat, is the legislature’s most vociferous foe of slots. Ehrlich, a Republican who has pitched slot machines as the best salve for the state’s fiscal woes, has threatened to veto the tax package in the unlikely event that it clears the Senate.
Some Marylanders interviewed last week grumbled about the politics of the tax squabble.
‘So political’
“It seems like [Busch] is — I don’t want to use the word ‘blackmailing’ — but why did he have to tie it with the gambling thing?” says Marlene Bowen, 52, of Arnold, a former state tax auditor who keeps books for her daughter’s Eastern Shore dental practice. “It’s so political. I don’t like that.”
A Sun poll of likely Maryland voters found 36 percent favoring tax increases to close the state’s large budget shortfall and 20 percent willing to accept a combination of higher taxes and program cuts. Those were the highest numbers since the poll was first conducted two years ago.
“This is still a Democratic state for the most part,” says Keith Haller, president of Potomac Inc., which oversaw the telephone poll of 1,200 Marylanders in early January.
“And in difficult economic times, people are more concerned about basic government services and support of education and therefore they’ll at least be open-minded to protecting some of those crucial priorities.”
But he noted that Baltimore and the Washington suburbs often part ways politically with the more conservative Eastern Shore and Southern and Western Maryland. That was borne out in phone interviews last week.
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Carol Denison, 54, of Prince George’s County, a recently retired computer programmer, says she can afford the proposed increase in the sales tax to 6 percent from 5 percent, but she frets about those who can’t. She has been volunteering at a tax-preparation office for the poor and sees how every penny helps.
“I think it hits the poor more than it should,” she says of the sales tax. “If [state officials] really need the money, just go ahead and increase the income tax across the board.”
Most people, Democrats and Republicans, said they had no objection to the proposed temporary increase in the income tax rate, from 4.75 percent to 6 percent, for taxable income exceeding $150,000 for individuals and $200,000 for households. Most Marylanders — 97 percent of them, to be exact — don’t make that much.
Money’s worth
But several people said they are reluctant on principle to see any more tax money flow to a state bureaucracy they view as too big and free-spending.
“I really don’t have a problem with the taxes I pay right now, except that I wish I could tell we’re getting our money’s worth from what I consider bloated government,” says Richard Fleece, 59, of Columbia, an administrator for an aluminum business who calls himself a conservative Republican.
Charisse Williams, 36, of Silver Spring, a program coordinator for a Washington nonprofit group, says she does some of her shopping in Virginia to avoid the higher sales taxes in the capital and Maryland.
“I don’t want to be selfish in that it’s all about me,” says Williams. “But of course, as a single person, [the sales tax] will affect me more. I heard word that they’re going to raise taxes, and I don’t see any benefit for me.”
Ilene Gruenfeld, 68, a retired teacher from Rockville, says she is happy to pay a higher sales tax in exchange for keeping out slots. She says she has gotten good value from the state government. Her two children, she says, went to the University of Maryland, College Park on full merit-based scholarships.
“The money has to come from somewhere,” she says. “I’d rather see it come from taxes than I would from slot machines and gambling because, unfortunately, the people who wind up losing can’t afford to.”
Like many other retirees on fixed incomes, Mario Raab, 72, of Catonsville, a former truck driver, says he has no spare money after his $2,500 in monthly pension and Social Security checks pay for health care, gasoline, auto repairs and a mortgage.
Raab backs slot machines as the best source of income for the state.
He was happy to hear that part of the Busch legislation would drop the state property tax rate from 13.2 cents to 5 cents per $100 of assessed value, but he says he doubts whether the property tax break would make up for what he sees as the steady increases in taxes and fees in recent years.
“They just keep taxing and taxing and taxing, and pretty soon I’m not going to be able to live,” he says.
Frank Narducci, 37, a Navy physicist who lives in St. Leonard, has three children in the Calvert County schools and plenty of gripes about the curriculum, a few of the teachers and the lack of science textbooks. He says he would love to see his children’s schools receive more money but suspects the Thornton education reform plan will route most of the dollars to worse-off districts.
“The money wouldn’t go to my kids,” he says.
Narducci is dead-set against a higher sales tax. A better solution, he says, is reducing money for people on welfare and in public housing.
“I would much rather see the government cut support for those people, take the money they save and put that in the schools,” he says. “I certainly won’t vote for anybody who supports that tax.”
<!– ART CREDITKIM HAIRSTON : SUN STAFF
ART CREDIT–> <!– CUTLINE TEXTMarlene Bowen, 52, of Arnold, a former state tax auditor, says of Del. Michael E. Busch's linking the tax proposal to the slots issue, "It's so political. I don't like that."
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