Kyle's Position: Families are hurting financially in large part because politicians in Annapolis keep raising taxes.
Taxes are too high but this will not change so long as tax and spend career politicians are in office.
I oppose higher taxes on working class families and entrepreneurs because as a businessman I have seen how taxes stifle economic growth and unfairly
penalize those who would otherwise use that money to expand, create jobs, and increase wealth.
In order to improve the economy and create jobs, we must not drive businesses away with high taxes. Yet that is what is occurring.
Citigroup announced that it will shut down its Frederick County operation, BP Solar and JP MorganChase announced that they will lay off a
combined 1,000 Marylander workers in Frederick, and Northrop Grumman chose to relocate to Virginia rather than Maryland because it is a more
business-friendly state. These are all examples of companies who employ a significant number of workers that are forced to relocated due to
Maryland's high taxes.
Meanwhile, Maryland recently ranked the fifth-highest in the nation in state and local taxes paid by its citizens per capita.
According to the Tax Foundation's yearly ratings of state tax, Maryland's tax burden is worse than 45 other states. The Tax
Foundation's 2009 Business Tax Climate Index also tells us that Maryland currently has the worst ranking on personal income tax in the nation.
It is also important to note that raising taxes has not helped us reduce the budget deficit even though Gov. O'Malley
and the Assembly pushed through $1.3 billion in tax increases in order to "put Maryland's fiscal house in order." Gov. O'Malley
said that we would receive $20 million in increased revenues by taxing high income earners, but the opposite has proven to be true.As the
Republicans in the Senate have argued, the result of the tax was to force these job creators out of Maryland. Estimates based on the
2008 tax returns show that over one third of all former taxpayers did not file taxes in Maryland. They changed their residency to outside the state.
The result was a $100 million drop in tax revenue. It should be noted that these high income earners are also job creators and tax payers.
We need these people to stay in Maryland and pay taxes here! This is why, among other steps, I support: