the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Sep 8, 2003
Despite all the talk of gloom and doom for the budget, Maryland ended its 2003 financial year on June 30 with a surplus of 122 million dollars. Top state officials obviously lied when they claimed there would be a deficit for the year. Just like they’ve been lying every time they claim there’s no alternative, but to cut social programs like education, health care and drug treatment in order to balance the budget.
In reality, social programs like these are being cut, so that the state can continue forking over more and more millions of dollars every year in tax breaks and other subsidies to the corporations and rich people in Maryland–like the estimated 650 million dollars in sales taxes on businesses services that companies in the state don’t have to pay every year, just to give just one example.
Maryland’s phony budget crisis is being used to justify its ever greater robbery of the poor to finance its ever greater gifts to the rich.