Several constituents have inquired as to what bills I plan to file this session. I have already pre-filed several bills. The first five of which are as follows:
HB-16 Will exempt University and College text books from State Tax. If we are looking for ways to make a college education more affordable why are we taxing student textbooks?
HB-24 Will prohibit a State’s Attorney from offering concurrent sentencing as part of a plea agreement for offenses involving multiple children. Why should a multiple offending pedophile be allowed to serve multiple sentences simultaneously as part of a plea bargain? For example, if the molester is charged with molesting five children, the state would not be able to offer a plea of guilty in exchange for a 10 year sentence, for each child, to be served all at the same time.
HB-25 Will make the money received in exchange for an agricultural easement tax free. Why would we want to tax the million dollars we are giving to the farmer to purchase his or her development rights? If we give the farmer 1 million and tax it at 40% the farmer only ends up with $600,000. On the other hand if we offer the money tax free the farmer could get $700,000 and there would be $300,000 left in the fund to purchase other development rights. The farmer is not going to leave the State they purchase seed, trucks and machinery and stay in the State.
HB-31 Will allow the citizens of Maryland to go to the polls and challenge tax increases by referendum. Currently the State Constitution prohibits the citizens from taking to referendum any tax increase.
HB-44 Is an effort to open up government and require some accountability by mandating the disclosure in a fiscal note of the math used to arrive at an estimated cost of projects. Legislators are given fiscal notes that estimate the fiscal effects of each bill and more often than not the estimates are incorrect. If the work behind the estimate were required to be provided the legislators would be able to discuss possible other costs or savings that were not originally taken into consideration.
Part II will be posted on Wed. as I will now be posting new material at least every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Should you have any questions or comments about these bills please share them.
I was wondering if you were going to post information on HB-52? This is a VERY important bill, and we need to start courting support for this one.
Richard
I am also in support of HB-52 it is a very important issue being addressed in this bill..please let me know how the bill can be helped by me.
I strongly support Delegate Smigiel’s HB-52. Thankfully I had an opportunity to speak with the Delgate today about this issue, and can see the need to address it quickly.