In a likely preview of Republican proposals should the party win the Maryland gubernatorial election next month, its 1998 candidate for the U.S. Senate [sic], Baltimore lawyer George Liebmann, writes on a Baltimore Sun opinion page that the state’s current Smart Growth practice ”has reached its limits” and that the time has come to privatize […]
A charter-school bill will be introduced in the Maryland General Assembly this year. That is the good news. What sort of charter-school bill? Well, that may be the bad news. In 1991, Minnesota became the first state to enact a charter-school law. Despite current intentions, Maryland is by now well behind the curve, being one […]
Governor Parris N. Glendening (D) has proposed a sizable cut in income-tax rates for Maryland. While the governor has taken an important step in recognizing that the key to economic growth is a lower tax burden for state residents, his proposal has several key defects that must be remedied before enactment. The Glendening Proposal On […]
It is by now well known that the General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Welfare Reform has recommended that legislation be crafted allowing the state to screen welfare applicants for drug use. The task force is co-chaired by Senator Martin G. Madden (R-Howard and Price George’s) and Delegate Samuel I. Rosenberg (D-Baltimore City/County). There are a […]
The defense first made for Mayor Schmoke’s recent proposal to up the city piggyback income tax was the small average per-person tax increase that would result, less than $75 a year. This is not the point. Baltimore is not a pleasant enough place to live that it can afford to be making any more tax […]
So how are vouchers doing?” asks columnist Clarence Page in a March 15 piece in the Baltimore Sun, preposterously titled, “A Reality Check on School Vouchers.” “Unfortunately,” he opines sternly, “the marketplace produces disasters along with miracles.” School choice falls into the former category, apparently. Two — yes, two — of the private schools participating […]