TAX NEWS - 2010

Baltimore Tax: Bottle tax more about egos, less about money

The tension over Baltimore's bottle tax, passed last night to save city services, shows how politics can veer from substance into petty drama. We're talking about a nearly invisible few cents per drink. But in City Council it became a contest not about revenue but about egos, "winning," "losing" and pride.

Retail interests said the 2-cent tax that passed was better than the 4 cents originally proposed. It's a difference of two pennies. Customers aren't going to notice. They wouldn't have noticed 4 cents. Retail lobbyists can paint the 2-cent deal as a partial "victory." So can Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who backed the 4-cent tax.

Two miserable pennies. But it created the perception of compromise, which got the deal done. Surely heavy pressure was applied to Helen Holton, who voted against the 4-cent deal last week but reintroduced the bottle tax last night and voted for the 2-cent version. But give her credit for being willing to change her mind. Her ego looks like it took the biggest hit.

Why is it the when the city talks about cutting back, the police and fire fighters are always top of the list? Because they want to scare the city residents into paying more taxes. The city government is like any old, overstuffed bureaucracy. Full of fat, middle management, and administrators.