TAXPAYER BREAKING NEWS, June 2004,continued from Home Page

June 30, 2003. Lost GOP Souls. "By an astonishing vote of 326 to 88, the GOP-controlled body rejected the Family Budget Protection Act that would have removed the bias toward greater spending inherent in the current Congressional budget process," writes the Wall Street Journal. "Even among Republicans, the bill lost 131 to 88. The Members also nixed the Spending Control Act, a less ambitious bill that Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle championed to impose spending caps, by a vote of 248 to 146." TBN comments: In Maryland, only Roscoe Bartlett made the Role of Honor in supporting this much needed budget-control measure. Maryland taxpayers will want to know why Mr. Gilchrest voted against this important reform.

June 28, 2004. Phyllis Schlafly celebrates anti-tax referrendum victory of Nevada's 'grass-roots granny.' "When government employees also serve in the legislature or other elective office, which provides a powerful incentive to continue the cycle of tax and spend. Thanks to Hansen's valiant efforts, it looks like Nevadans will have the opportunity to roll back a tax increase and improve their system of government."

June 27, 2004. Baltimore raises taxes, cuts jobs, reports the Washington Times. "Mr. O'Malley thanked the council for the tax revenues it did increase."

June 27, 2004. Sen. Alex Mooney helps form 2AM--Second Amendment Coalition--an effort to encourage gun owners to register to vote, reports the Baltimore Sun. "In a news release announcing the creation of the 2AM coalition, the senator said gun owners need to be aware that 'every day liberal politicians are working in Annapolis and in Washington to take away their Constitutional right to own a gun.'"

June 25, 2004. Charter schools face challenges even as federal money flows, reports the Gazette. "'With the fact that we haven't seen any charter groups open this past year, we tend to believe the counties aren't doing what they can do to open charter schools,'said Anna Marcucio, vice president of external affairs for the Center for Education Reform, an education advocacy group in Washington, D.C. In February, the Center for Education Reform ranked Maryland's law the seventh weakest of the 41 around the nation.'"

June 25, 2004. Ehrlich cuts some state employee positions. "Ehrlich has directed his Cabinet secretaries to find additional cuts to close the gap using '88 percent budgeting,'" reports the Gazette. "That means each secretary must justify any spending above 88 percent of their budget as Ehrlich prepares his next budget with an eye toward closing the long-term gap without new taxes."

June 18, 2004. Malpractice solution proposed to governor-- with doctors, lawyers seeking pool of tax dollars to cover rate increases, reports the Baltimore Sun. "At least $25 million in taxpayer money could be needed to pay for the pool, and Ehrlich has opposed tax increases that could provide the money."

June 15, 2004. Republicans who love taxes, continued..."The nominal majority of 51 Senate Republicans has been bogged down trying to pass an annual budget resolution because four of their Members want to institute a procedural hurdle to make tax cuts all but impossible for at least the next three years," says a Wall Street Journal editorial. "These votes show that their real motive in obstructing future tax cuts is to keep the money in Washington so they'll have more to spend."

June 14, 2004."Dwyer is, among other things, an engineer, a delegate to Maryland's General Assembly, and a saint," declares Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard in a column on his descent into the bureauracy of the Free State. "Distraught by my column, [Dwyer] emailed me. We spoke on the phone minutes later. Within a few hours, the Comptroller's office had issued me a note removing my name from the lien."

June 14, 2004. What domestic policy initiatives should President Bush pursue in a second term? Which of those should he campaign on this year? -- asks Robert Novak in townhall.com. "Medicare is the issue he almost surely will forgo. Senior administration officials privately admit that last year's prescription drug bill was a disaster substantively and politically. The golden opportunity for Medicare reform was squandered. Although the need for basic change along market-based lines persists, nobody has the will to revisit this issue any time soon."

June 10, 2004. State tax revenues are growing strongly once again--fueled largely by an improving economy, a host of tax increases, and a crackdown on tax shelters, reports Tom Herman in the Wall Street Journal. "A survey to be released next week will show state tax collections rose 8.1% in this year's first quarter from a year earlier. That follows a 7.2% gain during the fourth quarter and represents the largest quarterly gain in nearly four years, says Nicholas W. Jenny, the survey's author and a senior policy analyst at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, the public-policy research arm of the State University of New York. He says tax revenues in recent months are showing stronger growth than at any time since the recession ended in late 2001. Even after the recession ended, state-tax revenues remained anemic through the middle of last year."

June 7, 2004. Peter Samuel--SPECIAL to MTA. No dedicated funding for Metrorail. "A dedicated funding source would effectively remove Metrorail from oversight and accountability. It would be an open invitation to waste and extravagance. It would burden the whole region with a new tax and detract from the standard of living of the people of this area."

June 7, 2004. The Wall Sreet Journal sums up the Reagan Restoration. "Mr. Reagan's sunny fortitude sometimes discomfited his friends as much as it did his enemies. Pre-Reagan, 20th-century American conservatism had been tinged with gloominess: Western civilization was in decline and the road to serfdom was inevitable. Mr. Reagan never signed on. Unlike some on the right (and almost all on the left), he had a deeper faith both in American principles and in a human nature that owed itself to a Divine hand that had made men free and made America to prove it. This was the same vision that animated John Winthrop in 1630 as he beheld the New World from the tiny deck of the Arabella and dreamed of a shining 'city upon a hill.' No wonder this was one of Mr. Reagan's favorite images and became one of his Presidency's signature lines. More than any President since Lincoln, Mr. Reagan embodied the exceptionalism that is an essential part of the American character and continues to motivate our politics."

June 7, 2004. Citizens Against Government Waste: Only Rep. Roscoe Bartlett earns "Taxpayer Hero" rating in U.S. House delegation from Maryland. CAGW rates Gilchrest "lukewarm" for 2003 session, "friendly" for lifetime votes. CAGW rates the others "unfriendly."

June 1, 2004. MARYLAND (educational) CRABS. When the Baltimore school board decided arbitrarily to delay action on any charter school proposals and to cap the number reviewed to 3 in total, its members probably thought their action would go unchallenged, reports the Center for Education Reform.