Almost all Republican legislators in Annapolis are sponsoring a state constitutional amendment that would require a three-fifths supermajority of the General Assembly to raise any taxes.
A poll commissioned by Sen. Andy Harris, R-Baltimore-Harford, found that two-thirds of Maryland voters support the idea, with majority support in every demographic group.
“Marylanders agree that we need this protection in Maryland,” said Harris, who ran for Congress last year and is lead sponsor of the “Taxpayer Protection Act.”
“In 2007, we would not have enacted the highly unpopular sales tax increase” and the other tax income, tobacco and corporate tax hikes passed in the special session, if the proposed three-fifths vote was in place. Those tax increases barely passed by slim majorities, particularly in the Senate, and with no Republican votes.
Gov. Martin O’Malley, who fought for the tax hikes to cure a structural deficit, dismissed the GOP notion, saying the Republicans were willing to vote for spending in state programs “without the revenues to support them over the long term.”
O’Malley thought “a better approach would be to not allow them to vote for cake for which they’re not willing to pay.”
The poll was an added question to an already published Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies survey taken in early January, contacting 842 registered voters by phone.
The lowest support was among Democrats (57 percent), independents (56 percent), residents of Baltimore City and the Washington suburbs (59 and 56 percent) and African-Americans (55 percent). The margin for error was plus or minus 3.5 percent.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 16 states require a supermajority for tax hikes, nine of them, including California, by a two-thirds vote. Delaware has required a three-fifths majority since 1980.
House Republican leader Tony O’Donnell said party members are concerned that the state aid provided in the federal stimulus legislation for health care, education and other operating programs “will only increase pressures in the out years for increased taxes on our citizens.”
“If we expand our general fund spending, what’s going to happen when that federal stimulus ends?” asked Del. Steven Schuh, R-Anne Arundel, lead sponsor of the House bill. “Now is the time for fiscal restraint.”
O’Malley, who has been counting on President Obama’s stimulus plan to balance the state budget this year and next, said, “I haven’t seen any Republican programs for greater cuts than the $1.9 billion that we have put in this budget,” reducing legislatively mandated growth in spending.
“I welcome any suggestions that they might have,” O’Malley said.
