Delegate Moon’s Fiscal Folly: Tax, Spend, Repeat by Clayton Mitchell

n Maryland’s General Assembly, an insatiable appetite for taxation continues unabated. Rather than exercising the fiscal discipline expected of responsible stewards of the public trust, lawmakers such as Delegate David Moon (D-Montgomery) remain ideologically beholden to the notion that government largesse must never be curtailed, only expanded. The latest incarnation of this fiscal overreach is a proposed 2.5% sales tax on certain business-to-business services – an imprudent scheme that threatens to undermine Maryland’s economic vitality while serving as a mere stopgap in the face of a looming $3 billion budget deficit.

This taxation policy, as reported by Bryan Sears in Maryland Matters, is yet another attempt by Annapolis’ Democratic majority to siphon additional revenue from Maryland businesses rather than confronting the obvious truth: the state government has grown far beyond its means. Instead of addressing budgetary inefficiencies, implementing structural reforms, or cutting superfluous spending, Delegate Moon and his compatriots believe that Maryland’s private sector—already burdened by high taxes and regulatory constraints—should bear even greater financial strain.

Contrast this reckless profligacy with the reasoned opposition of Senate Minority Leader Stephen S. Hershey Jr. (R-Upper Shore), whose statement cuts through the legislative fog like a scythe. “In the Maryland Democrats’ obsession to raise taxes,” Hershey rightly notes, “they have now concocted a new business-to-business sales tax that will make it even more expensive to operate a business in Maryland.” At a time when neighboring states such as Virginia and Delaware offer far more attractive commercial environments, Maryland’s ruling class appears hellbent on driving enterprise across state lines, leaving economic stagnation and job loss in its wake.

The reasoning offered by Delegate Moon is as audacious as it is specious. With the air of an overconfident central planner impervious to the realities of market forces, Moon asserts that his tax proposal “provides balance” to any necessary spending reductions. This is the language of a politician who sees no intrinsic virtue in a leaner, more efficient government but instead views taxpayers as mere financiers of his legislative wish list. Were Moon and his colleagues sincere in their desire to achieve balance, they would begin by excising wasteful expenditures, consolidating redundant agencies, and reining in the bloated bureaucracy that continues to drain state coffers.

This latest revenue grab also serves as a pointed reminder of Annapolis’ historical ineptitude in taxation policy. One need only recall the infamous 2007 attempt to tax computer services – a disastrous experiment that was quickly repealed after a swift and well-justified backlash. The current proposal, which targets accounting, lobbying, and IT services, is simply a variation on that same failed theme, one that will yield similar economic consequences should it pass.

Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and his confederates argue that the evolving economy necessitates a revised tax structure. Yet their approach is as unoriginal as it is damaging. A “service-based economy,” as Ferguson describes it, is indeed an economic reality, but the answer to shifting economic paradigms is not to tax innovation and entrepreneurship into oblivion. True economic stewardship requires fostering a business climate conducive to growth, not one that penalizes success with an ever-expanding web of taxation.

Maryland’s taxpayers and business community should be outraged. They should reject outright the fallacious notion that government’s first recourse in times of financial strain must be to extract more from those who produce. Instead, the electorate must demand a thorough reformation of state spending priorities, a commitment to fiscal restraint, and the eradication of policies that punish economic productivity.

Delegate Moon’s proposal is not merely a misguided policy – it is an affront to sound governance. Meanwhile, Senator Hershey and his Republican colleagues, though outnumbered, stand as the last bulwark against this relentless march toward fiscal irresponsibility. Marylanders must rally behind them and demand better from their elected officials. 

The choice is clear: we either capitulate to the unchecked expansion of government and its insatiable hunger for revenue, or we reassert the primacy of free enterprise and responsible governance. Let us hope that reason prevails before Maryland’s economic fortunes are further imperiled… but I’m not holding my breath.

Clayton A. Mitchell, Sr. is a life-long Eastern Shoreman, an attorney, and former Chairman of the Maryland Department of Labor’s Board of Appeals.  He is co-host of the Gonzales/Mitchell Show podcast that discusses politics, business, and cultural issues.