Maybe they get it?
I was surprised to read this:
On every other measure, Fairfax residents and businesses pay lower taxes than their counterparts in Montgomery. The biggest gap is in income tax rates, especially at the top. We do not have the comparative tax burden between the two counties, but on the state level Maryland (ranked 4th in the nation by the Tax Foundation) far exceeds Virginia (ranked 18th). There is no way that Montgomery County, a high-tax county in a high-tax state, can compete with Fairfax on the basis of low taxes.Emphasis mine, but isn't this something that Maryland Republicans have been saying about Maryland vis-a-vis Virginia for some time now, even before Martin O'Malley's historic and immoral tax increases?
Maybe, just maybe, Maryland's liberal class is finally starting to understand the damage done by high, confiscatory taxation.
(Crossposted)
1 comments:
Brian, did you actually read the article?
The non-property tax burden in Montgomery is around 10.8% of income, versus 9.8% for Fairfax, if Pugnacco's math is reasonably reliable. In Montgomery, base property taxes are lower than in Fairfax, though in much of the county addition surcharges erase that gap.
No, Montgomery cannot compete on the "price" of government with Fairfax; the "prices" are nearly the same and Montgomery County will not "blue light special" its way to attracting residents from Fairfax.
I don't think either Fairfax or Montgomery can compete with the other on "price"; I don't think that two areas are substitutes for each other. The Metrorail connections for downtown commuters are not terribly efficient; few areas are a one-seat ride from both jurisdictions. Both counties have massive employment centers of their own, centers that are not nearly as tax rate-elastic at tax hawks would prefer ideologically.
If people and businesses were as tax rate-elastic as some would have it, Brooklyn and San Francisco would simply move to Biloxi and New Hampshire and Juneau.
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