Today's GOP: Tax Cuts, Yes--Depending On Who You Are

In the Twilight Zone of modern politics, one must always be wary of the politician running for office who raises the specter of threatening to sue his opponent for slander.  Case in point, and otherwise submitted for your approval:  one Lawrence Hogan, the son of a late Republican Congressman who had the guts to impeach Richard Nixon, but who struck out in the direction of the private sector, until he managed to stumble into the Maryland Governor's Mansion, with the help of a horribly inept campaign by his Democratic opponent.

Well, mostly inept, anyway.  It turns out that Anthony Brown, or at least his campaign staff, could actually find a way to land a punch.  The Brown campaign, you may recall, ran a series of campaign advertisements suggesting that Mr. Hogan just might pay for his tax-cut proposals by increasing tuition at state colleges and universities.  You may be sure, of course, that Mr. Hogan did not take the content of these ads lying down.  In fact, he demanded that said advertisements be pulled from the air, going so far as to describe their claims as "slander."

Slander!  Imagine!  A Democratic candidate offering the suggestion that his Republican opponent might try to pay for one or more of his "promises" by "sticking it" to a constituency that isn't going to vote for him!  Oh, the humanity!  Oh, the humanity!  Will no one stop this fiend, Anthony Brown, from being so unfair and unjust to his "worthy" opponent?

Or was he unfair or unjust?  This week brought fresh evidence that he was neither.  On the one hand, Governor Hogan announced a "tax cut" in the form of a reduction of tolls.  Not one to be found lacking in hyperbole, the "Guv" (as his predecessor, Martin O'Malley, was described by O'Malley's predecessor, Robert Ehrlich) described this "cut" as one that would save Marylanders a quarter of a billion dollars (over five years; actually, 50 million a year).  To be more precise, the "Guv" said this "cut" would put this money "back into the pockets of our beleaguered Maryland taxpayers, and back into our economy."

Ah, but there's the rub.  Although the money will surely go back into our economy, a hefty chunk of it will not go back into the pockets of Maryland taxpayers--or, if it does, it won't stay there for very long.  For, almost in the same instant as the tax "cut" was announced, the University of Maryland system announced the likelihood of a tuition hike of 5 percent, based on planned reductions in support from the state budget.  Planned, of course, by the "Guv."

Well, why wouldn't he want to stick it to the intelligentsia?  They didn't vote for him.  And after all, isn't that the zero-sum way in which modern politics is played.  Get as much power as you can, stick it to the other side, and the hell with the bigger picture in which we all live?  Isn't that the "change" that people supposedly voted for in the last election?

Well, not really.  Sometimes, in elections as well as sports, the outcome is more about the loser and the winner.  Larry Hogan's campaigned on a series of bromides whose lack of detail reflected his own inexperience in politics.  In truth, he did not win; his opponent threw away an election that was easily winnable, largely because he took the outcome for granted.  Even in a blue state, that attitude breeds failure, even against an unworthy opponent.

On the other hand, Hogan did tout his experience as a business owner as a pedigree for knowing how to fix the state's alleged economic ills.  Well, fair enough, Guv.  Except that you apparently missed out on the most fundamental aspect of political economy.  It is this:  your spending is my income, and my spending is your income.

And when you tell the students at local public schools "Gee, it's too bad, but you'll have to reach into your increasingly empty pockets and pay more," guess what?  A lot of them just are just not going to go.  The universities will then have even less revenue.  Tuition will have to go up again.  Oh well, there's an alternative:  we can just cut the quality of our education down to the point at which we can just close the schools and sell off the land for private development.  OK, a little hyperbole there.  But programs will be cut.  Students will go elsewhere.  And none of this even begins to get into the economic impact that this will have on the local economies in university/college communities.  Less student spending.  Less hiring for local businesses.  Fewer orders for local businesses that provide services and sell goods to the schools.

Very simply the point is this:  the Republicans have no recipe for baking more pie.  They're content to try and find new ways to re-cut the existing pie, so that the interests that underwrite their campaigns get the biggest slices, and everyone else gets crumbs.  Isn't that always the Republican endgame? Comforting the comfortable, and afflicting the afflicted?  Isn't that what thirty-plus years of trickle-down economics have done:  reduced our economy to a trickle?

Hoganomics, as we can describe the local version of this, is a game with very few winners, if any at all.  If the "Guv" was serious about "growing" the economy, he would actually look for new businesses and new ways of doing business, and use existing resources to support this new activity instead of shriveling them.  Take Heather Mizeur's proposal to legalize marijuana, which could easily be expanded to legalizing hemp, a resource that provides alternatives for depleted resources.  Or take the benefits of solar/wind power.  Imagine solar panels and wind turbines on every road in the state, generating power that the state could sell--or even offer for free or reduced rates to small businesses and non-profits.

Sadly, we have a "Guv" who is about as unserious as he can be.  He'd much rather turn the economy into a wedge issue, rather than actually giving Marylanders an economy that would provide benefits for everyone, regardless of income or political affiliation.  Such wedges can and do plague us, in the Twilight Zone of modern politics. [Cue music.]  Do do do do, do do do do ...