296 VETOES

which the State will pay them $10,590,000 in the coming
fiscal year.

An even greater proportion of increase can be shown in
motor vehicle revenue and gasoline taxes, with the result
that many localities carry on vast street improvement pro-
grams completely free from local tax levies for such pur-
poses.

Included in the total of funds to be paid to the subdivisions
by the State in fiscal 1955 is $34,287,000 for public schools,
compared with $9,872,000 in 1947.

In almost every session of the General Assembly new
laws are passed requiring the State to increase the expedi-
tures for purely local purposes.

If House Bill No. 24 were to become effective, this already
tremendous burden would be further increased. Additional
regrettable steps in the same direction might well be in-
spired by this proposed legislation.

In Baltimore City and Baltimore County, for example,
there now are City and County excise taxes levied by the
local governments on tobacco products.

It is conceivable, as in the case of the present bill, that
certain special interests would deem it beneficial to them to
have these taxes levied on a state-wide basis, and a share
of the collections distributed to all of the counties and the
city.

This would add more millions to the burden of the State
as a collection agency for local governments and would
further remove the local appropriating bodies from the re-
sponsibility for collection of local revenues.

A similar broadening of the special taxes collected on com-
mercial and industrial utilities bills by Baltimore City and
Baltimore County would be within the realm of possibility.

Indeed the dangerous potentialities in the example of such
legislation as this are so extensive that eventual complete
support of local governments by State taxation is not in-
conceivable. Such an eventuality, of course, could lead only
to the destruction of local government. The Sherbow Com-
mission warned against this hazard.

3. There obviously was no popular demand from the
counties or Baltimore City for this legislation. The City
and Baltimore County already have their own liquor taxing
authority and the revenue therefrom. The general effect is
to force, so to speak, this extra revenue on other counties,
increasing the cost of distilled beverages to the consumers,
and necessitating an eventual increase in one or more fields
of taxation for all taxpayers to make up the revenue lost
to the State.