{"id":8815,"date":"2017-10-31T07:00:47","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=8815"},"modified":"2017-10-30T23:03:23","modified_gmt":"2017-10-31T03:03:23","slug":"stop-giving-robin-ficker-more-ammo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=8815","title":{"rendered":"Stop Giving Robin Ficker More Ammo"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

Right about now, the happiest man in Montgomery County lives in Boyds.\u00a0 He is 74, a huge sports fanatic, a long time attorney, a former state Delegate, a perpetual candidate and a tireless activist.\u00a0 He loves the County Council because some of its members give him endless material for use in his never-ending demagogic campaign to weaken and ultimately paralyze county government.<\/p>\n

Yes folks, we are talking about the notorious political heckler Robin Ficker<\/a>.\u00a0 And he must be jumping for joy at the news that some members of the council are considering a possible new soda tax<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ficker has been running for office and placing charter amendments on the ballot, mostly intended to limit taxes, since the 1970s.\u00a0 The huge majority of his amendments have failed, often because the political establishment labeled them \u201cFicker amendments\u201d to exploit the national infamy of his heckling at Washington Bullets games.\u00a0 One exception was the razor-tight passage of his 2008 charter amendment mandating that all nine Council Members vote in support of exceeding the charter limit on property taxes.\u00a0 But Ficker has never had more ammo than in the last four years and he has used it to push his anti-government agenda.\u00a0 Consider what has happened.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s approval of a large salary increase for its members<\/a> in 2013 and its passage of a 9% property tax hike in 2016 gave Ficker\u2019s term limits charter amendment momentum.\u00a0 Some Council Members then used their campaign funds<\/a> to finance a lawsuit to keep term limits off the ballot, which failed<\/a>.\u00a0 Council Member Nancy Floreen\u2019s \u201cexasperated\u201d and \u201cdefensive\u201d performance in a television debate with Ficker<\/a> and Council Member George Leventhal\u2019s comparison of term limits supporters with Brexit voters<\/a> didn\u2019t help.\u00a0 Ficker predicted term limits would pass by twenty points; instead, they passed by forty.<\/p>\n

Robin Ficker thanks MoCo voters for giving him his biggest political win ever.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all.\u00a0 Ficker has enrolled in the public financing system established by the council for his latest Executive run.\u00a0 And he requested the county government\u2019s email lists<\/a> after another resident obtained them under the Public Information Act<\/a>.\u00a0 Any competent campaigner \u2013 maybe even Ficker \u2013 should be able to use those thousands of emails to raise enough money to qualify for public matching funds.<\/p>\n

And now we have news of the soda tax, which prompted gleeful self-promotion by Ficker in Bethesda Magazine\u2019s comment section<\/a>.\u00a0 Expect a Facebook ad soon.<\/p>\n

Your author does not enjoy writing this column because we find merit in this particular tax.\u00a0 Sugary drinks and soda are public health menaces, especially to children.\u00a0 The intended use of the money for early childhood programs is a good idea.\u00a0 And the current tight budget does not give any quick or easy options for funding undeniable, but expensive, priorities like early childhood education.\u00a0 But the counter-argument from Ficker, who calls Council Members \u201ctax increase specialists,\u201d is obvious.\u00a0 \u201cThey\u2019re not listening to you,\u201d Ficker will tell the voters.\u00a0 \u201cYou told them no more tax hikes and they\u2019re going to do it anyway.\u201d\u00a0 Even Leventhal, who has voted for numerous tax hikes and has done as much to promote public health as any Council Member ever, has come out against the new tax<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The danger here is not that Ficker will be elected.\u00a0 Voters made that mistake once all the way back in 1978 and have never come close to repeating it since.\u00a0 The real problem is the next charter amendment that Ficker will inevitably introduce after his latest election campaign fails.\u00a0 Whatever else Ficker is, he is an astute student of Maryland county tax policies.\u00a0 He is fully aware of the taxation and spending limits in the Prince George\u2019s County charter<\/a>, such as the requirements that the property tax rate may not exceed 96 cents per $100 of assessed value and that bond issues, new taxes, other tax increases and some fee increases be approved by voters. \u00a0He is also aware of provisions in the state constitution and several county charters that forbid legislative bodies from adding spending to executive budgets.\u00a0 Indeed, some of his past charter amendments have been variants of such policies.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing to raise taxes during terrible economic downturns as the county did in 2010.\u00a0 That simply had to be done.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very different thing to discuss new discretionary tax hikes in times when voters are not convinced that they are absolutely needed.\u00a0 If the council would like to have more money available for worthy programs, it should focus on growing the economy<\/a>, stop adding ongoing miscellaneous spending financed by one-shot revenue sources<\/a>, redirect cable fund money to purposes that actually benefit the public and restrain some parts of the budget to finance expansions of others.\u00a0 Doing those things will free up tens of millions of dollars, and maybe more, over time.\u00a0 But constant talk, and occasional passage, of discretionary tax hikes will only help Ficker place a Prince George\u2019s-style anti-tax doomsday charter amendment on the ballot.\u00a0 Should such a thing pass, no soda tax will save us.<\/p>\n

Hence a warning.\u00a0 If you give Robin Ficker enough ammo, even he will eventually hit the target.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Right about now, the happiest man in Montgomery County lives in Boyds.\u00a0 He is 74, a huge sports fanatic, a long time attorney, a former state Delegate, a perpetual candidate and a tireless activist.\u00a0 He loves the County Council because some of its members give him endless material for use in his … Continue reading Stop Giving Robin Ficker More Ammo<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,15,286,134],"tags":[1545,1463,1596,1539],"class_list":["post-8815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-montgomery-county-council","category-robin-ficker","category-taxes","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-montgomery-county-council","tag-robin-ficker","tag-taxes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2ib","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8815"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8820,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8815\/revisions\/8820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}