A New Record?

Mark Uncapher, Chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party

In what may be a new record for him, Martin O’Malley’s response to a recent Wall Street Journal article critiquing ( see this Wall Street Journal article ) his performance, the Governor packed 10 lies and half-truths into just 90 words:

First, the Governor:
“According to the conservative group Change Maryland, 30,000 taxpayers fled the state for Virginia after Governor O’Malley raised taxes on millionaires in 2007. Change Maryland used data that the IRS openly recognizes as incomplete to draw their erroneous conclusions. Maryland saw the smallest tax filer change in the region from 2007 to 2010, losing 25% fewer tax filers than Virginia. In Maryland, tax filers decreased only 5.3% from 2007 to 2010 compared to a 7.1% decrease in Virginia, an 8.5% decrease in Pennsylvania, and a 15.5% decrease in West Virginia.”
See: http://cl.publicaster.com/SocialMedia.aspx?pubids=134%7c6784%7c6&digest=uMmOnaZ1q%2bXtrPy1lo1LUQ&sysid=1&1=WCC&2=R7u

Here is the background.

A user-friendly way of fact-checking each state’s taxpayer migration status is the Tax Foundation’s web-based Tax Migration Calculator below, which uses the same IRS data that Change Maryland did.

1. 11,455 Marylanders fled to Virginia during the period in question not 30,000. The Administration may be confused – over 30,000 Marylanders fled to all states.
2. Nowhere in Change Maryland’s tax report is the word “millionaire” mentioned. The Administration is attempting to deflect the tax flight problem as a class-warfare issue.
3. The IRS does not say the data is “incomplete.”
4. Nobody but Martin O’Malley and a radical Daily Kos blogger say the conclusions were “erroneous.”
5. According to the IRS, Maryland saw the largest taxpayer exodus of any state in the region, and seventh-highest nationally.
6. According to the IRS, Virginia’s net inflow of residents was nearly 30,300.
7. According to the IRS, West Virginia’s net inflow of residents was just over 14,600 residents.
8. According to the IRS, Pennsylvania’s net outflow of residents was just over 8200 residents.
9. Delaware, which is also in the region, but omitted from the Governor’s statement, saw a net inflow of nearly 7500 residents, according to the IRS.
10. The District of Columbia, which is also in the region, but omitted from the Governor’s statement, saw a net outflow of just over 1100 residents, according to the IRS.

http://interactive.taxfoundation.org/migration/
http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=212683,00.html
http://www.changemaryland.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/StateCountyTax.pdf

About Mark Uncapher

Mark Uncapher has been Chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party since 2008. The party represents over 125,000 registered voters, http://mcgop.com/ Professionally he is a telecommunications lawyer and previously served as a Counsel to a Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He and his wife Robin are both graduates of George Washington University and have lived in Bethesda since 1995.

View all posts by Mark Uncapher