Wyn Delano
WMAL.com
ANNAPOLIS — (WMAL) The state of Maryland is, for better or worse, joined at the hip to the federal government. And if you’re the state’s top tax collector, the last 23 days of a partial government shutdown have been in the “for worse” category.
“The idea that this is just business as usual and who cares that [federal employees] are furloughed and not getting paid — not only is that lacking in compassion for your fellow Marylanders — but its also a big misreading of the impact,” says Maryland State Comptroller Peter Franchot.
Roughly 90,000 federal workers in Maryland are furloughed, and another 82,000 federal contractors are estimated to be going without paychecks during the ongoing partial government shutdown.
A report from the Maryland Bureau of Revenue Estimates says that every pay period that is missed due to the shutdown leads to roughly $57.5 million less in combined state and local income tax withholding, along with a $2.1 million dip in sales tax revenue.
“When you take $750 million — almost three quarters of a billion — in payroll out of the state’s economy every other week, you’re gonna see less purchases of sales tax related items,” Franchot explained. “Some of that may come back once [federal workers] get paid, but a lot of it won’t,” he added.
While the government shutdown — now the longest in U.S. history — seems likely to continue indefinitely, a bill to offer furloughed federal workers back pay has received bi-partisan support. However, Franchot is quick to point out that the 82,000 hourly federal contractors going without pay in Maryland wouldn’t be reimbursed, leaving the state without their tax dollars.
Franchot, a Democrat working under Republican Governor Larry Hogan, puts the blame for the ongoing shutdown squarely on the shoulders of President Trump:
“The idea that he’s not responsible — the buck stops on his desk. I mean, there’s no way around it, he’s the President of the United States and this shutdown is his shutdown.”
Franchot, who claims that he received “hundreds of thousands” of Republican votes in his last election hopes that the mounting impacts of the shutdown puts political pressure on the President to back down from his demand for Democrats to fund a wall on the southern border.
“I guess at some point he’s going to wake up and see his shrinking support numbers in the polls and, hopefully, allow the country to get back to normal,” he said.
Yet with both sides remaining at an impasse over the President’s wall, Franchot is getting his office ready in case the shutdown drags on. He insists that his office will process state tax returns on time this year, and says that his office now intends to create some “leniency and flexibility” for affected federal workers come tax time – though the details of those plans remain unclear.
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