Yes America, Martin O'Malley Really Did Tax the Rain

Sorry Media Matters, But O’Malley Did Tax the Rain

Media Matters took issue with my article The Democrats Have the Worst Presidential Candidates in America where I wrote that, “Unfortunately the only other thing that O’Malley is famous for is taxing the rain as governor.”

And that’s true.

Martin O’Malley doesn’t even need a theme song. There are multiple songs about him taxing the rain like No Taxation With Precipitation and Who Would Tax The Rain.

Media Matters responded by quoting a variety of defenses that don’t actually address the issue, but instead drag out assorted environmental arguments.

House Bill 987 did indeed tax the rain. If you want to be technical about it, it taxed any impervious surfaces on which rain falls. Defenders prefer to call it a ‘stormwater fee’, but that’s another way of saying rain tax.

The left obviously hated the term “Rain Tax” because it makes them look bad. But they don’t argue the issue on the facts, instead they whine about it. Media Matters quotes Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s claim that it’s false.

Q: What about the assertion that these fees are a tax on rain (or a “rain tax”)?

A: That moniker is catchy but blatantly false. It is designed to mislead and confuse. The truth is that we are talking about a fee to reduce pollution from water that washes off hard surfaces and empties into local waterways.

It’s ‘blatantly false’ because it’s not a rain tax, it’s a fee on water that falls from the sky.

Can’t be any clearer than that. Right?

It's pretty clear that the "Rain Tax" was indeed the straw that broke the camel's back in Maryland, and caused the state to go for the Republican Hogan over Democrat Brown in the last gubernatorial contest. Maryland is a very blue state, and that was too much for it.

Being in one of the rural jurisdictions in Maryland not affected by the "Rain Tax" (yet), I had no direct interest in the tax. However, I saw how it was being implemented in the ones that got it, and in general, they went out of their way to stick it to rural interests like farms far in excess of their actual contributions to storm water  and protect the liberal churches and NGOs in the cities.

If that's what you want, vote for O'Malley.