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(There was no response.)
THE CHAIRMAN: Are you ready for
the question?
(Call for the question.)
The question arises on the adoption of
Amendment No. 1...A vote Aye is a vote in
favor of the amendment. A vote no is a
vote against. Cast your vote.
Has every delegate voted? Does any dele-
gate desire to change his vote?
(There was no response.)
The Clerk will record the vote.
There being 14 votes in the affirmative
and 96 in the negative, the motion is lost
and the amendment is rejected.
The Chair will recognize Delegate Weide-
meyer to offer as Amendment No. 2, an
amendment just offered as Amendment No.
1 except to strike out everything in line
9 after the word "exemptions" and all of
lines 10, 11, and 12 and all of line 13 ex-
cept the period. Is that your amendment,
Delegate Weidemeyer?
DELEGATE WEIDEMEYER: Yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: Each of you will
mark your copies and the Clerk will mark
a new copy. Is there a second to this
amendment too?
(The amendment was dull/ seconded.)
THE CHAIRMAN: The Chair recog-
nizes Delegate Weidemeyer.
1) E L E G A T E W E 1 1 ) E M E Y E R : M r.
Chairman, this amendment moves that ob-
jection on the part of the Committee which
was that it might be difficult to compute
how much they could go up when the fed-
eral government reduced, this fixes a ceil-
ing and I do not think it presents any dif-
ficulty with the words "excluding deduc-
tions and exemptions" because that is what
we now have. We pay tax on the taxable
income and the taxable income is that in-
come which excludes the deductions and ex-
emptions. I do not see how the people of
Maryland are going to be able to exist if we
continually raise the income tax rates. The
Chairman has said there is a possibility of
an income tax rise. We have failed to go
into the taxing areas in other areas where
we could get revenue for the State so we
are relegated to taxing real estate, sales
taxes, and income taxes. I do not know how
much higher we can go on sales tax, but I
do know that with the federal burden and
the state burden our people are getting to
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the point where they are being crushed by
the taxation load, and I do think there
ought to be in our constitution a limitation.
Last year or this year while running as a
delegate for the constitutional convention
people all over my area were thoroughly
worked up about the increased income tax
and I promised them at that time that I
would do something so that this could not
continue indefinitely, and they would know
that there would be a limit somewhere
along the lines beyond which the legislature
could not go. Mr. President and members
of the Convention, that is the simple story,
and I move and ask for the adoption of
this amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: Delegate Case?
DELEGATE CASE: Mr. Chairman and
ladies and gentlemen of the Committee,
much of what I said before is applicable
in this instance except the second point.
Namely, the complexity of the formula has
now been removed. I think in reasoning
together about this subject, we all must
admit that it would be extremely unfortu-
nate to put a limit on any tax in the Con-
stitution. There are very few, if any, basic
documents which contain a limit on a tax,
and I think it would be very poor to
straight-jacket future legislatures, viewing
problems we know nothing of, with a par-
ticular limit on any tax. I suggest to Dele-
gate Weidemeyer that if under the greatest
stretch of imagination you were to limit a
tax, he has selected the wrong tax to limit,
because it is generally conceded among tax
people that the income tax is the most pro-
gressive of all kinds of taxes. That is to
say, if you limit the income tax to nine
per cent, the result inevitably will be, if
additional revenues are necessary, that the
sales tax will have to be increased, that the
real estate tax will have to be increased, and
that other taxes of this kind which bear
most heavily on the people less able to pay
will be the result of this action so I say to
you in the greatest of sincerity that this is
not in my judgment a good amendment, and
it should be defeated.
THE CHAIRMAN: Is there any dis-
cussion?
(There was no res]>on.se.)
Are you ready for the question?
(Call for the question.)
The Clerk will ring the quorum bell.
The question arises on the adoption of
Amendment No. 2. A vote Aye is a vote in
favor of the amendment. A vote No is a
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