October 30, 2006. California Conservatives Wage Ballot Battle to Protect Private Property, reports Assemblyman Chuck DeVore in Human Events. "Sailing just under the radar with less than $7 million in combined spending from the support and opposition camps is Proposition 90, the most far reaching and potentially most significant state-level political event in America this year. Proposition 90 is a state constitutional amendment with the short title of 'Government Acquisition, Regulation of Private Property.' It seeks to reform both eminent domain abuse and regulatory takings."

October 27, 2006. NTU and ATR support appropriations language restricting OECD funding for international tax harmonization schemes, reports The Market Center Blog. "Two of the country's most influential free-market advocacy groups, the National Taxpayers Union and Americans for Tax Reform, sent letters to the Congress urging them to retain language inserted in this year's State Department spending bill by Senators McConnell, Inhofe and Brownback. The provision would bar the OECD from using the U.S. taxpayer contribution for "activities or projects ... designed to hinder the flow of capital and jobs from high-tax jurisdictions to low-tax jurisdictions or to infringe on the sovereign right of jurisdictions to determine their own domestic policies."

October 26, 2006. Tim Chapman (http://timchapmanblog.com) points out this timely reminder by Paul Teller at the RSC blog. "Just a quick reminder that we are currently living under the speech-muzzling McCain-Feingold/ Shays-Meehan law (Public Law 107-155), which makes it harder for citizens groups and individual citizens to participate effectively in the campaign process."

October 26, 2006. Reaction to BGE Deal Failure Crosses Party Lines, reports Andrew A. Green in the Baltimore Sun. "Del. Warren E. Miller, a Howard County Republican and one of the strongest business advocates in the General Assembly, said he believes the failure of the merger will ultimately hurt Maryland because it will leave Constellation without the financial resources necessary to invest in increased generation capacity in the state."

October 25, 2006. Examiner Editorial: City pension fund needs better oversight. "The $1.3 billion ERS fund has faltered in recent years. One of the reasons is the performance of its fund of funds manager, Fiduciary Investment Services. A comparison of its peers places it in the 59th percentile for the three years ending in June and in the 72nd percentile for the past year. If those rankings were grades, the fund would earn a D for the past three years and a C for the past year. So obviously the expensive educational trips have not paid off in terms of helping trustees choose good financial advisers. Without those perks the board members of the city Fire and Police Fund have chosen fund managers who have exceeded their goals."

Otober 24, 2006. Examiner editorial: How do we tell the state’s tax men apart? "The free market Cato Institute gave Ehrlich a 'C' in its biannual report on governors because of those issues and the fact that his most recent budget proposal raised general fund spending by 20 percent. The group credits him for spending most of his time fighting the Democratic controlled legislature from raising more taxes and says he is better than his predecessor — Parris Glendening — on that topic. But, 'On the spending side ... there doesn’t seem to be much difference between the two anymore.'”

October 24, 2005. Litigation Day: Control of Congress may be decided in the courts, beginning November 8, reports John Fund in the Wall Street Journal. "When top officials such as those in Maryland call for general use of absentee ballots, a fundamental erosion of trust in the voting system is taking place. The growth of absentee ballots has been explosive in recent years, exceeding 30% of all ballots cast in 2004 in such states as California, Washington and Iowa. When combined with the early voting many states now allow, about one out of four Americans will vote on a day other than Election Day this year. John Fortier of the American Enterprise Institute concludes in his new book, Absentee and Early Voting, that 'there are now many election days, beginning in September and only culminating on the traditional November date.' But absentee ballots aren't the answer to election fears. They clearly increase the potential for fraud. 'The lack of at-the-polls accountability and protection from intimidation makes absentee ballots the tool of choice for those who commit fraud, 'the Florida Department of Law Enforcement concluded in 1998 after a mayoral election in Miami was thrown out when it was learned 'vote brokers' had submitted hundreds of phony absentee ballots.

October 23, 2006. Virginia tops Maryland on tax competitiveness index, reports the Examiner. "By contrast, Maryland looks good on corporate taxes and sales tax at seventh and eighth, respectively, but plummets on the other three measures, showing 35th on individual income taxes, 30th on unemployment and 41st on property taxes. Put otherwise, Maryland taxes individuals and their property much more severely than most other states, and especially so compared to Virginia."

October 23, 2006. U.S. Supreme Court Overturns Ninth Circuit Decision to Bar Voter ID Requirements, reports the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. "Today the U.S. Supreme Court voted unanimously to overturn a recent Ninth Circuit decision barring the enforcement of an Arizona voter ID law. Enacted in 2004 by citizen initiative, the law required proof of citizenship for new voter registrations and photo identification at the polls."

October 23, 2006. Writing in the New York Observer, Richard Brookhiser gives one critic's view of the Pataki Era in a review of Squandered Opportunities: New York’s Pataki Years, by New York Conservative Party stalwart George Marlin. "Mr. Marlin’s summary may be useful to Iowa’s Republican caucus-goers in 2008, if Mr. Pataki’s Presidential ambitions last so long. 'George Pataki is not a Conservative. He isn’t even a real Republican. He’s not a Democrat or an Independent or a Right-to-Lifer or a Green.' He has belonged instead to 'Albany’s dominant political party. He’s an Incumbocrat'—a party of three drunks: the Speaker of the Assembly (a Democrat), the Senate Majority Leader (a Republican), and the Governor (variable), holding each other up on the backs of the taxpayers."

October 20, 2006. The Wall Street Journal on our small defense budget: This is no way to win a war. "In retrospect, Mr. Bush missed a historic opportunity after 9/11 to ask government to spend less on non-essential programs so it could spend more on security. Instead, overall federal spending grew by nearly 50% in Mr. Bush's first five years, as he allowed Congress to spend more on just about everything. At least Mr. Bush avoided the trap of asking for a tax increase, which would have slowed the economic growth that we have seen throw off record amounts of revenue in the past two years, and thus fund spending on both guns and butter (or, too often, pork)."

October 19, 2006. George Will writes about Prosperity Amid the Gloom in the Washington Post. "Economic hypochondria, a derangement associated with affluence, is a byproduct of the welfare state: An entitlement mentality gives Americans a low pain threshold -- witness their recurring hysteria about nominal rather than real gasoline prices -- and a sense of being entitled to economic dynamism without the frictions and 'creative destruction' that must accompany dynamism. Economic hypochondria is also bred by news media that consider the phrase 'good news'an oxymoron, even as the U.S. economy, which has performed better than any other major industrial economy since 2001, drives the Dow to record highs."

October 18, 2006. The GOP Has Some Explaining to Do: The stock market and the 2003 tax cuts are directly linked . . . and Republicans need to say so, report Cesar Conda & Daniel Clifton in the National Review. "But the fact of the matter is that the GOP is not speaking to the aspirations of the middle-class investor voter. However, it is not too late. As if this writing, the Dow is poised to break 12,000. This will create a huge opportunity for the GOP to connect their tax-cutting policies and the resulting increase in shareholder wealth. (NRO’s Jonah Goldberg suggests that Bush 'figure out how to show up by surprise at the New York Stock Exchange some day soon when it goes into record territory (again) and clang the bell.') At the same time, since elections are about the future, Republicans should offer a “Contract with America’s Investors,” listing specific actions they would take to boost the stock market even more if the American electorate allows them to retain control of the Congress."

October 2006. Edwards: Dissolve no-firearms zone, reports Michael A. Sawyers, Cumberland Times-News. "Edwards said that not only did he not set up the meeting in Annapolis, but that neither he nor Sen. John Hafer were made aware that it had taken place, even though the lodge is in their political district. Delegate LeRoy Myers confirmed Monday that he was the person who facilitated the meeting between the lodge owners - Dreisbach and his wife, Jan Russell - and Slattery." [See also TRIPWIRE comments "Ehrlich Administration Curtails State Hunting Lands."]

October 17, 2006. Bush Tax Cut By The Numbers: Historic Tax Cut Boosts Growth, Lifts Stock Market, and Increases Jobs. 14 trillion increase in household wealth, 5.7 trillion increase in shareholder wealth since April 2003, and more. One-page summary from the American Shareholders Association encapsulates the many economic benefits of the Bush tax cuts.

October 17, 2006. Americans for Tax Reform names Taxpayer Protection Caucus Chair Herb McMillan “Friend of the Taxpayer.”'Taxpayers have a true friend in Herb McMillan,' said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. 'On behalf of the taxpayers of Maryland, I thank the delegate for his stalwart leadership and efforts to protect taxpayers’ interests.'”

October 17, 2006. Unfunded State and Local Health Costs: $1.4 Trillion, report Chris Edwards and Jagadeesh Gokhale of the Cato Institute. "On the basis of our review of data for 27 jurisdictions, we estimate that state and local retiree healthbenefits are underfunded by $1.4 trillion nationwide. All those liabilities represent a looming threat to taxpayers and indicate the need for major reforms of government benefit plans and other spending activities."

October 12, 2006. Delegate Warren Miller wins MTA's Significant Achievement Award. "MTA, the statewide grass-roots voice of the taxpayers of Maryland, recognizes delegate Warren Miller for his significant achievement in raising public awareness of the need to foster real competition among Maryland gas retailers, and for jump-starting the long legislative process necessary to get this done. MTA needs Warren Miller in the next General Assembly to fight for the consumer interest in gasoline retailing, and to support low-tax pro-jobs initiatives in the General Assembly."

October 12, 2006. Former MTA president KENNETH TIMMERMAN writes in FrontPageMagazine.com: "The month long falconry camps are “al Qaeda’s boardroom,Parrot said in his letter to the CITES secretariat. “'Those same royal falconry camps for which the U.S. CITES Secretariat makes administrative allowances that permit import/export licenses to be issued, provide ongoing material support to al-Qaeda’s leaders,' he wrote. 'Cars, cash, weapons, and medicine are transferred to al-Qaeda in these camps,' which 'continue as the venue of first-choice for clandestine meetings between al-Qaeda and U.S. 'allies' from Saudi Arabia and the UAE,' Parrot added. The luxury hunting camps provided an extraordinary opportunity for top al Qaeda leaders, including Osama Bin Laden, to meet with top Arab princes and solicit money from them, while engaging in their favorite sport: hunting the Houbara bustard with peregrine and Gyrofalcons." As Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote in 1921, in the period that separated World War I from World War II: Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot see the falconer Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world - - - Editor

October 11, 2006. Maryland slips in State Business Tax Climate Index, reports the Free State Foundation. "Each year the Tax Foundation releases a report detailing how states stack up under its State Business Tax Climate Index (SBTCI). The bottom line: This year Maryland slipped to 29th place in the SBTCI ranking from 25th place last year. In other words, Maryland's lawmakers, media, and citizens should take note: There is a lot of room for improvement. The Tax Foundation's new release is here and the study's Executive Summary is here." The Free State Foundation is a Free Market Think Tank for Maryland...Because Ideas Matter. To subscribe to Free State Foundation email alerts: rmay@freestatefoundation.org

MTA Names McMillan as Outstanding Taxpayer Advocate 2003-2006. MTA, the statewide voice of the taxpayers of Maryland, recognizes delegate Herb McMillan as an Outstanding Taxpayer Advocate 2003-2006, a distinction earned in four consecutive General Assembly sessions by his firm opposition to tax increases, his leadership of the House of Delegates Taxpayer Protection Caucus, and his strong advocacy for a Maryland Taxpayer Bill of Rights or TABOR. See full text of the award.

October 7, 2006. Ehrlich pleases some attendees, disappoints others at gathering, reports Len Lazarick in The Examiner. "Alfonso Coley, owner of Windsor Limousine Service, said, 'The kids are suffering. I would like to see a plan put in place that’s going to change' the schools. He recently took his two younger children out of city schools in favor of private education."