If you want a close look at what Barak Obama will do to America, look no further than the State of Maryland.

Since taking office in January 2007, Martin O’Malley has increased both personal and corporate business taxes, resulting in the flight of nearly 8,000 households and numerous private sector jobs to neighboring states.

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That does not even begin to assess the impact of the tax increases rammed through the Special Assembly earlier this year.  Those figures are not expected to be released until late September.  Or the tax increases looming in the very near future.  State Comptroller Peter Franchot is expected to release some more bad news for Marylanders today.

And now private sector jobless rates are on the rise as well.  The Baltimore Sun reports a sharp uptick in joblessness among Maryland’s citizens.

But interestingly, government jobs increased.  According to the Sun

[g]overnment employment continued to rise last month while private employment fell because cuts in sectors such as finance and manufacturing outweighed corporate hiring elsewhere.

How’s that for a vast left-wing conspiracy?

Creating dependence on government is what Democrats do best.  And creating government jobs is a huge part of that plan.

Just look at Barak Obama’s economic plan closely.

Increasing corporate taxes to 35%, he will hamstring the private jobs sector by depriving it of additional capital resources during the worst capital crunch in recent economic history.  Unemployment will rise as funds for capital investment are redirected to cover increased corporate taxes.

By increasing the capital gains tax, he will double the taxes on American small businesses that show over $250,000 of income stream per year on their balance sheets.  Unemployment will rise as American businesses fail or reduce their workforce to accommodate their increased tax burden.

The Heritage Foundation reports that under the Obama tax plan, Americans can expect to see their marginal personal income tax rate increase from 42.7% to 56%, ranking the US among the highest tax paying nations in western hemisphere, five of which have unemployment rates above 7%.  Both these rates are calculated before the inclusion of state and local taxes, which will certainly be on the rise in Maryland in 2009.

Note with particular interest the Foundation’s remarks about Maryland:

High-income individuals will be forced to pay even more if they live in cities or states with high taxes such as New York City, California, or Maryland. These unlucky people would pay over two-thirds of each new dollar in earnings to the federal government.

And note the consequence the Foundation describes as a result:

The consequences of [Obama's] policy would be a return to the bad old days of tax avoidance, with taxpayers disguising personal income as business income or capital gains and the migration of capital from the United States to abroad.

For proof that migration of capital really does happen, look no further than the recent confiscation of cigarettes smuggled into Maryland.   Delegate Anthony J. O’Donnell, the House Minority leader from Southern Maryland told the Baltimore Sun

“The Democrats in their zeal to raise taxes on cigarettes have driven Lord knows how much commerce across the boarder. The tax increases are going to hurt us in ways we haven’t even contemplated yet. We’re just starting to see ways we knew they would have an impact.”

According to the Sun, prior to the increase in the cigarette tax, fiscal analysts had predicted an 18% drop in sales resulting from increasing the tax; however, in the months since the tax was enacted, pack sales have dropped 23 percent to 35 percent, greatly exceeding the analysts prediction.

Which proves that raising taxes has the exact opposite effect:  rather than raise revenue, the revenue goes to other places…like Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

And then the State must create jobs to police the situation, creating another entrenched bureaucracy paid for by the taxpayers, and passing ridiculous laws that prohibit Marylanders from transporting more than two packs of cigarettes over state lines.

So, Marylanders pay increased taxes to create government jobs which require more taxes to supply salaries, benefits and administrative support, which increase taxes to provide additional salaries, benefits, administrative support and managerial oversight, which then increase taxes to provide more additional salaries, etc…
This does not sound like prudent fiscal policy:  it sounds more like a Ponzi scheme.

If the Democrats have it their way, before too long, we will all be on the dole, grateful for our government paychecks in one form or another, and grateful to the politicians who fund our employment and benefits with our own income and property tax revenue, supplemented, of course, by taxes on the evil corporations and “the rich.”

So much for personal liberty and the forces of capitalism at work in the lives of ordinary citizens.

Neither O’Malley nor Obama want us to have that freedom.

But the people of Maryland do.  Just ask any smoker who paid $17 less to buy his carton of cigarettes in Virginia.

And while would-be President Barak Obama and Governor Martin O’Malley are both working hard to pitch their wealth redistribution and job creation plans, all of these schemes will ultimately leave most Marylanders with fewer Os in their bank accounts and no bucks in the Yard.

But it’s up to us to cry foul ball, and throw the bums out.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 at 10:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.