Annapolis show down

Barry Rascovar wrote in the Weekend Gazette, 7 Jan 2004:

However it turns out, the special session proved a major PR setback for Ehrlich. He didn't get his way. Instead, he was out-maneuvered by Democrats, who look like semi-heroes to Maryland doctors and the public while the governor looks like a hard-nosed ideologue unwilling to bend.

Yet from a long-range perspective, the opposite may be the case. Democrats pushed through another tax increase over Ehrlich's vehement objections. And the tax they chose hits hard at nearly 1 million working-class Marylanders while giving the state's affluent citizens a free ride.

That vote will be a prime target for Ehrlich as he campaigns against "Taxocrats" in the next election. The complicated details of the special session's medical malpractice insurance fight will be forgotten by then. Holding the line against taxes remains Ehrlich's most potent re-election weapon.

Comments:

It seems to me that the PR setback, if there really is one, is only in the eyes of the biased mainstream media where so much of the working press seems determined to do whatever it can to make the Governor look bad and eventually fail.

I thought I was in the majority when I voted for Ehrlich and against higher taxes.

And I thought I was in the majority every time I voted to impose and keep the Prince George's County TRIM limit on taxes.

But from what I read in the Sun, the Post, and even your Gazette, you would think that I am part of some very small minority.

The majority of people in Maryland believe that we don't need or want higher taxes! Period!

But the disgusting hypocrites in Annapolis will do anything and tell any lie to avoid the wishes of the people.

I could hardly believe my ears when I heard ethically-challenged Mike Miller proclaim that the Governor's plan to use the state's general fund would take money away from progams for health and education.

This is the same Mike Miller who was behind taking hundreds of millions of dollars away from health and education to subsidize a football gazillionaire. The same Mike Miller who wants to help his baseball gazillionaire friend Angelos both rip off the people of the state and conspire to avoid baseball's anti-gambling rules.

When I read about what these people in Annapolis are up to, it makes me want to puke!

Oh--if they really, truly NEED new tax revenues to pay for the malpractice problem, I think they ought to pass a heavily progressive tax on trial lawyer fees--and all trial lawyers in the General Assembly ought to be required to recuse themselves from consideration of the issue.