They claim it’s Orwellian…

In a continuing postmortem to the recent General Assembly session, I received a tagteam effort from Delegates Anothony O’Donnell and Christopher Shank regarding the “millionaire’s tax” that replaced the dreaded “tech tax.” (And as always thanks to Carrie Simons-Sparrow for passing this along to me.) The pair make some good points:

Recent coverage of the repeal of the computer services tax in Maryland is reminiscent of George Orwell’s book 1984. Some of the same legislators who argued strenuously in favor of the tax during the legislative special session, are now hailed as heroes of the repeal effort. As a few issues have been confused and distorted, we would like to take this opportunity to clarify some facts from our perspective.

The expansion of the Maryland sales tax to include computer services was first enacted during the November 2007 Special Session. It was added to the already historic tax increases in, literally, the dark of night in a Senate committee, with no discussion or input from the public or members of the industry. This game of tax hokey pokey had been going on for several days, as various industries were in, and then out. Ultimately, the tech services industry became the loser in this game. At that time, the Republican Caucus argued on the floor of the House of Delegates how damaging this tax would be to the burgeoning tech industry in Maryland, and to the state’s economy. We also pointed out the singular unfairness of the process that led to this tax’s inclusion in the package being strenuously pushed by Governor O’Malley and the Democrat leadership.

We offered an amendment to strip the tech tax from the package, which failed. The General Assembly went on to pass the largest tax increase in Maryland history. Once again, the Republican members argued and voted against these taxes, proposing as an alternative, specific reductions in the rate of growth in spending to address the looming deficit.

(snip)

Governor O’Malley and the Democratic leadership chose to ignore all of the alternatives presented by the Republican caucus, and, after finally succumbing to public pressure, replaced the tech tax with another tax, this time the so-called “millionaire’s tax”. This backfilling was entirely unnecessary. As the Republican membership has pointed out multiple times over the past months, Maryland does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.

(snip)

The increased income tax is likely to have an equally damaging effect on Maryland’s economy. Many of the individuals who qualify for this increased tax are actually small businesses who file as a Subchapter S corporations, so once again a tax has been imposed which will damage small business.

The recent experience of California serves as a cautionary tale of the type of impact this new tax will have. When California imposed such a high-income tax several years ago, 5,000 of the state’s 25,000 highest income earners left the state. By depending on such a narrow sector of the tax base, for so much of their revenue, California quickly went into a $7 billion deficit, largely attributable to the new tax. Just like the tech tax, this new burden provides a disincentive for these high income families to reside in Maryland, and contribute to our state’s economy as well as to the state coffers. Clearly, the decision of a few of these highest income earners to leave Maryland in search of greener pastures would have a huge impact on our State’s finances, which are already unstable.

Actually, I think many people, wealthy or not, are fleeing California because it’s being overrun by illegal immigrants but that’s a post for another day. Regarding the new tax on wealthy Marylanders, the Delegates could have also pointed out that almost any new tax fails to bring in the revenue that the beancounters with the rose-colored glasses who inhabit government cheerfully predict will roll in once the tax is placed into effect. This is especially true when the target is narrow, such as smokers, purveyors of alcoholic beverages, or millionaires. All of them can vote with their feet and find a better deal someplace else.

I have one counterpoint to their post, however. Yes, a majority of Republicans in the General Assembly consider themselves fiscal conservatives. Unfortunately, only 7 Republicans in the Senate and 31 of the Republicans in the House of Delegates stood strong against the O’Malley budget. If we can’t even place a united front against the bloated budget that is being sent, what use is putting up an alternative? Yeah, I’m sure that some of the GOP people (unfortunately the list includes both local State Senators and Delegate Elmore) will claim that there’s something in it for their region or pet cause that they placed there, but if we’re going to be principled we have to sometimes just say “no way.” The Maryland GOP isn’t going to get anywhere if they roll over like Fido when there’s a Milk-Bone in master’s hand, even if they do present alternatives.

Yeah, we’ll see how well this post goes over this weekend. So I’m hardline – deal with it.

Crossposted on Red Maryland.

Apologies are in order

In the next few weeks, I’m going to upgrade to WordPress version 2.5; my target date is over Memorial Day weekend so monoblogue may be out of service during that time.

In the meantime, some motherf—er has written a program that defeats my word verification so I’m being besieged by spam comments about online poker, blackjack, casinos, etc. Today I came home to find 1400+ in my moderation queue, so if you commented legitimately and it ended up in my spam queue to be deleted, I apologize. I’m not sifting through all those comments. There were two legitimate ones that were in the proper queue and they made it through.

To that end, I’m temporarily requiring registration to comment again. Since I’m going to upgrade in the next few weeks, hopefully I can simultaneously find a different word verification program that is a little more spam-proof – if I’m real lucky it will work with my current version so I can get back to normal with comments. So bear with me as I attempt to stem the tide of crap I have to deal with.

It’s one of those days I’d love to have a worm program that runs to the source of these spam comments and just trashes that computer. Something tells me that there’s a thousand other folks out there who use the same word verification program as I who are dealing with this too.

Later tonight I’ll actually have a brief political post – I just turned on the computer after getting home and taking my regular walk and was chagrined to find the ever-expanding spam comment queue. So pardon my indulgence.

Late edit: I’ve found a plug-in that’s supposed to be compatible up to WordPress 2.5.1 (the latest version) so when I return from my meeting tonight I’ll see how it worked! If it cuts down my spam I’ll eliminate the requirement for registration.

Update 2: I have lifted the restrictions as the new program worked! It’s called WP-SpamFree version 1.8 and if you have a WordPress blog you can get it here. I even chipped in a bit to help them out.

Another level of archi-hell

Anyone who makes a habit of reading monoblogue knows just how I feel about an organization I belong to, the American Institute of Architects. While they originally were an advocacy group to advance the profession, in the last decade or so it seems they’ve become more of a quasi-governmental bureaucracy with their support of mandatory continuing education for architects – naturally they decide which courses qualify and many times require a fee to pick up those necessary credit hours – and bombarding the membership with a push toward “sustainable” architecture in response to perceived manmade climate change. More energy efficiency is great but not by government fiat, nor do I believe in damning the cost in order to make a building “cradle to cradle” sustainable. Economic payback has to play a role – must be that capitalist in me. Has anyone ever had their LEED AP designation pulled? I might be the first.

Recently I found a blogger who questions another aspect of the profession. On a blogsite called Quiet Observations From Archi-Hell, “The Silent Observer” recounted his thoughts on modern suburbia vs. the New Urbanism instilled on students in architectral schools. A few excerpts:

I’ll be called a traitor. I’ll be laughed out of all respectable architecture circles. But I have to admit it. Having spent nearly a week visiting friends in the vast land of suburbia known as southern California, I could see myself living there. Yeah, I just said that.

Admittedly, this particular suburb of SoCal was only 20 minutes from the beach. And the sun was out nearly every day. For this New York City dweller, having come via London, the blinding yellow sun was like teasing a child with an ice cream cone after feeding them steamed broccoli. It was a bit of luxury, a break from a streak of ho-hum life. And you just want more. We’ll gloss over the fact that I was playing around for nearly a week without work. That would make any place seem appealing, I imagine.

More than the lack of responsibility, though, may have been the sense of overwhelming ease…

(snip)

Fact is, for a large portion of the population, (suburbia) is the lifestyle they are seeking. Architects, quite often it seems, willfully ignore this. We chase the glitzy, the adventurous, the sexy, the new, Maybe it gets back to being told, over and over again, to “think outside the box”. We are attracted to the idea that the status quo needs improvement, change, a radical shift in ideology, and of course we are. That’s how we justify the existence of our profession…

(snip)

(Suburban) homes are what many dream of. These are the places people hope to call home, imagine coming back to each and every night. These are the buildings people are willing to put their hard earned money towards. That says something to me. It says that these developers, for better or worse, understand the world better than I do. It reminds me that, for many, perhaps a majority, this is the lifestyle they want to live. Not the sleek, glassy living that our profession so often highlights, promotes. We vilify what the majority aspires to. That is a huge disconnect. (Emphasis mine.)

Does that not sound like the so-called progressive movement at large? They claim, “we know what’s best for you” when people know what they want.

Let’s face it: in American culture, bigger has always been better and each generation wants the best for the next one. Further, while I do not have a large house or Jeep Grand Cherokee sitting in my driveway, I’m not going to begrudge my friends and neighbors their personal choice to have them because it’s what they wanted. (I’m not thrilled about bailing them out for making poor lifestyle choices either, but that’s a subject for another day.)

Unfortunately, elitist architects (you know, the ones who grace the coffeetable magazines like Architectural Record and inhabit the leadership positions at the AIA) seem to think that communal living like that found in urban Europe should be what Americans aspire to as well, and we’re not that way. It’s a little late to change decades of thinking, so the shortcut desired by those on their side is to force us to do with less through excessive regulation, courtesy of the dollars confiscated from our wallet.

While my fellow blogger in “archi-hell” may not have traveled in the same direction, I think he (or she) and I reached the same understanding on what makes our culture unique, different, and inspiring for billions across the globe.