298 VETOES

the taxpayer, but, on the contrary increases the cost of a
commodity to him.

The bill is particularly unfair to the taxpayer when it
becomes so obvious, as noted before, that increases in other
taxes may be necessary to make up the State's loss.

This attempt to legislate so far into the future is as un-
necessary as it is unwise. As I pointed out in vetoing a
similar postponement provision in connection with teachers'
salaries passed at the 1952 session, the constitutional amend-
ment approved by the voters in 1948, providing for annual
legislative sessions, is a clear mandate against such deferred
legislation. By proposing to decrease State revenues from
the liquor tax commencing with the 1955-1956 fiscal year,
there is an obvious attempt to circumvent the intent of the
constitutional amendment. Until the State's financial needs
are known at the commencement of the 1955 session and the
revenue estimates from other sources of taxation are avail-
able, it would be foolhardy in the extreme to predict the
effect of this reduction in State revenues. It may very well
be that if the present bill is established law at the next ses-
sion, the State in order to make up a deficit would have to
impose an additional 25 cent per gallon tax on liquor, creat-
ing a State-wide rate of $1.75 per gallon, to the obvious
detriment of the very interests who sponsor this legislation
as a means of overcoming and eliminating local taxation in
Baltimore City and Baltimore County.

In 1933, the State tax on alcoholic beverages was fixed at
$1.10 per gallon. It was increased to $1.25—the present
level—in 1939 on recommendation of the Rawls Tax Study
Commission in order to eliminate competitive disadvantages
then resulting from a production tax on Maryland distillers.
The present bill, while raising the tax to a still higher level—
$1.50—actually would bring the State's revenue from it to
a point lower than that of the depression year of 1933.

It is obvious that such a loss in our growing State would
have to be made up from some source. Sectionalism and
local interest cannot be divorced from the interests of the
State as a whole, nor a single item of tax adjustment con-
sidered in vacua. Legislators are not merely representatives
of their counties, but act for the entire State as well. Such
problems require consideration of the fiscal needs, respon-
sibilities and resources of the entire State, irrespective of
lines of political and geographic demarcation.

Every Commission which has studied the tax structure
of the State has firmly recommended the retention by the
State of all revenue from alcoholic beverages. Even at the
time of the exhaustive study by the Sherbow Commission it
was concluded there should be no division of State-collected