How Much Did You Say That Would Cost?

MARCH 3, 2010 E-MAIL THIS PRINTER FRIENDLY

Twenty billion? Great! I was just thinking that's how much I'd like to pay to fix the storm drains in Baltimore City.

Legislation is actively being discussed that would add a tax to all property owners of the state of Maryland for "stormwater remediation." The tax would be one flat fee for homeowners, while it would be based off the total surface area of pavement and roofing for non-residential buildings. This tax, like all taxes imposed on businesses, would trickle down to the Maryland consumer like so much acidic rainwater running off into the Bay.

Baltimore City, one of the seven counties who have discussed implementation of the tax, already suffers from an aggressive, anti-business government that does not seem to understand how higher taxes pushes employers away, leaving the city to fall even further into poverty and violence.

While it may be so that, as the environmental advocates who support the tax claim, a major source of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay is urban runoff, this is not the time for it, or way to handle it. Budgets are already stretched far too thin, and if nothing is done to discourage the flight of capital from the city, spending the estimated $20B to fix storm drains would simply be throwing good money after bad.

Advocates claim that if everyone in Maryland gave $1 per month to help the cause they would raise about $74M annually. That's a far cry from what they estimate they'll need. Just to pay for the project as it currently stands (and when was the last time the government stayed within their estimated budget?) we would need almost $41M a month for four years.

By my math,[1] that means we'd all be kicking in an extra $6.76 every month, which doesn't seem to be too big a deal until you consider how Maryland politicians have been nickel-and-diming residents and businesses alike out of the City and into the surrounding suburbs, which have significantly lower property taxes and lower crime rates to boot.

An attempt to improve Baltimore is admirable, but we need to stop focusing on the micro issues here. Lawmakers need to understand that the only way to save a dying city is to stop taxing its residents and businesses to death and cultivate an economic environment where companies thrive and people can easily find gainful employment.

[1] $20,000,000,000 / 4 = $500,000,000 needed each year. $500,000,000 / 12 = $41,666,667 needed every month. Divide that by the original $6,166,667 that advocates claim could be raised each month by each person in MD donating $1 ($74,000,000 / 12 = $6,166,667) and you get a monthly cost per person of about $6.76 for the next four years.

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