Blog

Over the last year, while the 10 largest Mary­land juris­dic­tions were devel­op­ing fund­ing pro­grams to ensure the main­te­nance and improve­ment of stormwa­ter infra­struc­ture, a small, but vocal oppo­si­tion referred to this effort as the “rain tax”. This catchy lit­tle phrase led to some inter­est­ing sound bites, such as: “Tax the rain? Next it will be the air we breathe.” or “Mary­land taxes any­thing that moves.” Here’s my favorite, from the Gov­er­nor of Texas, “In Mary­land they tax rain, in Texas we pray for rain”. Well, there is another side to this nar­ra­tive. It’s not the rain but the runoff that is the cul­prit here. In sim­ple terms, rain falls from the sky– end of story. On the other hand, runoff