The Montgomery County Council is dropping the hammer on middle class residents in its massive $7.9 billion tax-and-fee-hike FY-2027 budget, which was approved in a 9-2 vote yesterday. Councilmembers Andrew Friedson and Dawn Luedtke were the only two opposed. Facing an ongoing structural budget deficit of its own design, the Council did what it always does - reward its cartel political patrons with taxpayer largesse, protect and preserve reckless spending, raise fees, and deliver a property tax hike. But they weren't done yet! The Council added a massive income tax increase for "rich" residents making...$1 million? $2 million? Billions? No! The new wealth tax will be paid by every County resident making (in Dr. Evil voice) $150,000 or more.
If you are making $150,000 and live in Montgomery County in the year 2026, you are squarely middle class. If you are making $75,000 (the Council's laughably-outdated measure of a Joe Six Pack), you're effectively poor, and maybe getting by paycheck-to-paycheck - if you're lucky. Interestingly, no one in the local press besides me is pointing this reality out. But that's par for the course for our media Fifth Column of fellow travelers.
Affordability? Hah! The Council, which draws itself a $168,000 salary at taxpayer expense each year for their part-time Council "jobs," is once again laughing at you. Yes, this is the same Council who insiders say refer to you, the taxpayers, behind closed doors as "losers" and "suckers." Well, you lost again yesterday, your bank account will lose even more, and you'll be a sucker for sure if you vote to re-elect these incompetent criminals this November.
You're paying double what you were for groceries just six years ago, gas prices are skyrocketing, cars are priced as luxury items now, utility bills are crushing you monthly, and insurance companies are price-gouging you with impunity. What does the Council do to address the affordability crisis? Raise your income tax, raise your property tax, raise the fees you pay, and - get this - eliminate the Income Tax Offset Credit that homeowners were eligible for. That makes two property tax hikes in one budget!
Now, the Council provided its farcical definition of "rich" as those of you making $150,000 and up. Do you know what they consider a lavish mansion? Homes worth $800,000 and up. It's not just their policies that are stuck in the Woodstock era, but their entire grasp on economics. Then again, nobody on the Council went to Yale or Harvard exactly. $800,000 and up? That's basically any home inside the Beltway that's not an as-is fixer-upper, and a huge percentage of homes outside the Beltway.
Think about the federal government workers the Council claimed they were so worried about. A large percentage of those workers are making $150,000 and up. Now they're getting slammed with a double property tax increase, and an income tax hike. You can see that the Council doesn't give a damn about you or your struggles, or about the rest of us private sector taxpayers.
Who does the Council give a damn about?
The Montgomery County cartel that gets them elected, and from whom they take their marching orders. That's the real estate developer oligarchs, the Council-connected "non-profits" who funnel taxpayer funding they receive back to the campaign accounts of councilmembers, and certain labor unions. All got fully funded in this budget. Montgomery County Public Schools got a massive increase in funding, while their enrollment of actual students is dwindling by the year. Make it make sense.
When you think of these synthetic-left councilmembers raising taxes on hardworking middle class residents at a time of financial struggle, think of the oligarchy. Think of the 20-year property tax exemption that the Council provided for their millionaire and billionaire oligarch developer sugar daddies just months ago. It applies to nearly every apartment development, and therefore is robbing the County coffers of billions in revenue. That fiscal impact was already felt this year. Billions going into the pockets of billionaires, instead of schools, police officer hiring, infrastructure, libraries and parks, for at least the next twenty years.
Who will make up for all that lost revenue, and the structural budget deficit the Council itself created earlier this century? Once again, the Council made clear: You, the taxpayer. You, the homeowner. You, the small business owner. You are the loser they mock. And the cartel oligarchs are once again the winners they reward - with your hard-earned income, and your equity and security in the home that was the biggest investment of your life. It turns out the government owned it all along!
Taxes going up, government and elected official salaries going up, traffic camera ticketing going up, and friends of the Council getting rich at the expense of taxpayers - all this happened in Bell, California, and elected officials there went to prison. All this is happening in Montgomery County right now. The County where oligarchs get richer, and their puppets on the Council drop an anvil on the middle class to make sure the numbers work out.
