Welcome to the New Year and Its Higher Taxes

As a District resident I never thought that I would see the day that MD and VA raised taxes and DC did not. But that day is here. This month the biggest tax hikes in MD and VA history go into effect. Maybe I should bless the dysfunction of the DC schools as expensive families keep moving out of the city.

In Maryland:

Maryland will begin implementing the largest tax increase in state history today, when higher tobacco, vehicle titling and corporate income taxes and sweeping changes to personal income tax rates go into effect.

The overhaul of Maryland's tax structure, which became law in November after a frantic special legislative session, will generate new revenue to help solve the state government's festering budget problems. Lawmakers also passed legislation requiring about $550 million in budget cuts. The cuts and new tax revenue are expected to close a projected budget deficit of at least $1.5 billion next fiscal year.

In Virginia:

If you plan to sell a home, buy a car or get a vehicle repaired in Northern Virginia, it's going to cost a bit more starting today, because of the transportation bill passed by the General Assembly last year.

Lawmakers gave the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority the power to impose taxes and fees that are expected to raise as much as $325 million a year for road and transit improvements. About $75 million of the annual revenue will be earmarked for Metro and the Virginia Railway Express.

DC Public School Reform: The Good and the Bad

The DC public school system spends $18K per student annually yet ranks dead last nationally in terms of student achievement. Even worse, its employees are a den of thieves who are so craven that they routinely steal funds raised for student activity clubs. The most craven theft was from a chess club for troubled students that had miraculously catapulted them into a national competition. Sayonara chess club, as

Business manager Sandy Jones ripped off most of the $73,000 that had been donated on behalf of the chess team, according to the Post investigation and federal authorities.

Jones is accused of using the school's ATM card more than 100 times to steal from the chess fund.

Enter energetic Mayor Adrian Fenty and new schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. They are tackling the right issues but as a taxpayer my disappointment is that every problem they solve costs more money, even as the schools lose students and therefore, in any rational world, should cost less.

The Good: Rhee wants to fire a third of the central office employees because they are worse than useless. One woman she wants to fire has cost the District $500K per year educating one student because the employee never filed the proper paperwork.

The Bad: The DC Council opposes Rhee's initiative and views the DCPS as the employer of last resort. Chairman Gray wondered, "what will happen to these people." And the firing will cost $6 million in severance payments.

The Good: Rhee has re-evaluated the insane $1.2 billion allocated to remodeling half-empty schools, many of which need to be shut, that the Council had approved. The remodeling plan was to remodel all of the schools, which overall are at about 50% capacity, and then at a later date close schools. Rhee wants to close 24 schools first, then renovate the existing ones.

The Bad: Somehow this smart move will cost DC taxpayers another $31.6 million over the current budget.

New DC Schools Head Boldly Goes Where No Man Has Gone Before: Ending Lifetime Union Employment

In urban school districts, liberal activists espouse two contradictory policies. They believe that schools should educate their students well, yet they also endorse the position that no school employee can ever be fired as they support the teachers' union.

New DC schools Chancellor Rhee wants to change the terms of the debate, and kudos to her.

As the initial piece of her strategy, Rhee has begun drafting legislation that would ask the D.C. Council to suspend personnel laws so that the chancellor would have the authority to terminate employees without having to reassign them to other jobs.

But the DC Council that was all over school reform in the election is already showing signs of cowering to union pressure. Member Harry Thomas of Ward 5, whose schools are the worst in the nation, is continuing to advocate the government as the employer of last resort. Of his coversation with Rhee:

We talked about labor union roles. I want to ask her about issues of [the] rights of employees who are fired. Where would they go? What would they do?

How does anyone who is not on a 30 year, cannot-get-fired, pension and health insurance gravy train answer that question? I don't know. Most of us expect that if we don't perform we will be fired, many of us have been fired, including me, and we lived to see another day. Most private sector employees have switched jobs six or seven times and we somehow survive. If the teachers that the DCPS are employing are so unemployable that Thomas has to worry about them then that gets right back to Rhee's smart demand to be able to fire them.