By Len Lazarick, MarylandReporter.com — The General Assembly's two presiding officers promised Friday that they would allow no budget growth next year, approve no new taxes, and scrutinize any legislation that would increase costs.

“There’s going to be scrutiny on anything that costs anything,” said Senate President Mike Miller, D-Calvert and Prince George's.

“You’re going to see a pretty austere budget,” said House Speaker Michael Busch, D-Anne Arundel. “We’re going to hold the line on spending … and keep as many people in the workplace as we can.”

Miller and Busch held a rare joint news conference to get more coverage of the action Thursday night by the Spending Affordability Committee on which they and all the assembly’s top leaders serve. The committee told Gov. Martin O'Malley that it wanted zero percent growth in the fiscal 2011 budget.

That recommendation had gotten buried by Thursday’s surprising news that the video lottery commission had rejected the only Baltimore City proposal for a slots parlor.

About the only new program Busch said he would support was Gov. Martin O’Malley’s plan for a $3,000 tax credit for any employer who hires someone who has been out of work. That new proposal would cost about $20 million to help support the hiring of about 6,600 people.

Miller said he would not support any tax increases, including the extension of the millionaires surtax set to expire at the end of 2010.

He said he had pledged last year that the tax of 6.25 percent on any income over $1 million would end when the recession was over. The number of Maryland taxpayers filing returns with income of $1 million or over fell by 30 percent this year.

Some of that decline was from drops in income, but about percent of millionaire filers from last year did not submit any Maryland returns at all.

Miller said he personally knew of three Montgomery County residents that had shifted their permanent homes to Florida to avoid the tax.

“This tax in my opinion could be counterproductive,” Miller said.

He also clarified remarks he made on Maryland Public Television Wednesday night, saying he would not support hefty increases proposed for alcoholic beverages.

“We need to put people back to work” and not “impose an onerous tax on restaurateurs” and others in the beverage industry, Miller said. Wholesale alcohol taxes have been proposed to help fund health care, addiction services and aid to the disabled.

Miller also said he thought this might be the last year for the tuition freeze at Maryland’s universities.

Republicans on the Spending Affordability Committee had proposed that the fiscal 2011 budget be cut by 7 percent. Democrats opposed the cut, and Busch urged reporters to keep asking the GOP members what exactly they might cut.

— December 21, 2009
Len@MarylandReporter.com