News/Commentary

Maryland Dem wants tax hike to fund reparations, paving a path to ‘a black market’

March 6, 2024 | | Print Article

A Maryland lawmaker’s new tact toward reparations had another warning about paving a path to “a black market.”

As BLM, CRT and DEI have been infused into the zeitgeist, legislators across the country have embarked on efforts to set present-day taxpayers on the hook for slaveowners and civil rights abusers from the past. Now, one Maryland state senator has proposed using an existing program to adjust the tax code to mete out more money for “disproportionately impacted areas.”

In February, state Sen. Jill Carter (D) sponsored the Maryland Reparations Act of 2024 that called for a “certain amount of revenue from the State individual income tax and Maryland estate tax be distributed to the Community Reinvestment and Repair Fund.”

Piggybacking off a plan established in 2023 to fund organizations servicing those “most impacted by disproportionate enforcement of cannabis prohibition before July 1, 2022,” the new legislation would alter the state’s tax code, including an increase on the sale of cannabis from 9% to 14%, while broadening the use of those monies to be allocated to low-income individuals and “disproportionately impacted areas.”

When introduced to the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee on Feb. 14, WBBF reported that Carter had said, “We are just in the beginning stages of our process of legalizing marijuana and we have made some great strides, like when we created the Community Reinvestment and Repair Fund, which is designed to put money back into, to prioritize communities of color that have most been negatively impacted by the war on drugs that unfortunately was a war mainly on poor and black people.”

“What this bill would do would help to infuse that fund with more money, and it’s not too much of an ask, because in doing the research for this bill, I learned we use the lowest taxation rate of any state in the country that has legalized marijuana,” she added.

However, the outlet noted state Del. Kathy Szeliga’s (R) opposition to the plan as she pointed to the Golden State’s marijuana laws that brought California Gov. Gavin Newsom to “crackdown on illegal operations.”

“[Bill] opponents would say ‘You’re driving it underground, you’re creating a black market.’ This is exactly what is happening in California,” said Szeliga. “Obviously the guy on the corner, selling weed, is not charging any tax.”

Reparations committees authorized by blue state governments across the country have concocted varying metrics to produce dollar amounts and other incentives to bestow upon descendants with price tags ranging from the millions to the trillions in taxpayer dollars.

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Meanwhile, Szeliga recognized that writing checks didn’t address the damages that the government continued to cause as she asserted, “I think, personally, the best way to help the black community is with school choice. We have kids that generationally are trapped in failing schools.”

“There are schools, especially in Baltimore City, where parents and grandparents attended the same failing schools,” the legislator contended. “The best way out of poverty is a great education.”

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Kevin Haggerty
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