Baltimore City Hall is once again trying to reinvent the wheel, and once again, the wheel is square. This week, Mayor Brandon Scott rolled out a 10-year financial plan that claims to “save” $2.5 billion while reinvesting $1.5 billion back into the city by 2035. The problem? Much of what the administration calls “savings” is not savings at all. It’s new revenue extracted from residents, wrapped in consultant language and sprinkled with the phrase “getting back to basics.”
Taxpayer advocates aren’t buying it, and neither should Baltimore’s residents.
Groups like Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) and the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) have spent decades fighting this exact strategy: the government promising “fiscal responsibility” while relying on tax hikes rather than spending restraint. ATR Chairman Grover Norquist would call the plan what it is a tax increase dressed up like reform. NTU, long a watchdog against local tax creep, would label it a roadmap for higher costs and shrinking opportunity.
Income Tax Hikes: A Plan to Chase Away Baltimore’s Remaining High Earners
Let’s start with the centerpiece of the plan: a progressive city income tax hike on anyone earning more than $500,000 a year. City Hall claims this will generate new revenue to stabilize the budget. ATR would call it something else entirely: a direct assault on mobility.
Raising income taxes on high earners is the municipal equivalent of hanging a “For Sale” sign on the city limits. These are the taxpayers who already carry a large share of Baltimore’s revenue burden. They’re the most mobile, the most likely to relocate, and the least tolerant of confiscatory tax policies. NTU has repeatedly warned that cities that aggressively tax wealth or income, such as San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, accelerate their own decline by driving out exactly the residents and employers they need to stay afloat.
Baltimore is already hemorrhaging population. Doubling down on the policies driving people away isn’t “bold leadership,” it’s policy malpractice.
Property Tax Shell Games Don’t Fool Taxpayers
Mayor Scott touts his plan to reduce Baltimore’s property tax rate to below 2% by 2029, suggesting relief is around the corner. But buried in the fine print is a classic tax-and-switch: raising the homestead cap from 4% to 6%. In other words, the city will tax more of the rising assessed value of homes even while pretending to cut the rate.
This is precisely the type of maneuver ATR and NTU warn communities to watch out for: politicians lower the headline rate but increase the taxable value, resulting in an even higher tax burden over time. It’s a clever trick designed to let city officials brag about “cuts” while collecting more money from homeowners.
Baltimore doesn’t need gimmicks. It needs discipline.
Vacant Property Tax Hikes: Another Revenue Trap
The plan’s push for higher taxes on vacant properties may sound reasonable, but as NTU frequently notes, punitive taxation rarely fixes underlying issues. It may push some absentee owners to sell, but it may also push struggling landlords deeper into insolvency, leaving the properties in worse condition and the city still on the hook for maintenance costs.
Baltimore’s core problem isn’t that taxes on vacant properties are too low. It’s that the city’s regulatory environment and crime rates make reinvestment unattractive. Punishing property owners won’t solve a structural problem City Hall refuses to confront.
Baltimore Doesn’t Have a Revenue Problem, It Has a Spending Problem
The mayor praises the plan for “getting back to basics,” but actual basics begin with spending restraint, not creative revenue expansion. ATR has been consistent on this point for 40 years: Governments must reform their budgets before touching taxpayers’ wallets. Baltimore hasn’t tried serious structural spending reform it has merely become accustomed to treating taxpayers as an ATM.
NTU would add that Baltimore’s plan shows the same flaw many failing cities share: the assumption that more government will cure the problems caused by too much government. Instead of streamlining bureaucracy, eliminating waste, or modernizing service delivery, the city doubles down on tax increases and calls them “savings.”
A City Cannot Tax Its Way to Prosperity.
Baltimore’s decline has never been due to taxpayers not paying enough. It stems from decades of anti-business policies, sky-high taxes, mismanagement, and crime. You don’t reverse that by digging deeper into the pockets of the residents who haven’t left yet.
If the mayor truly wants Baltimore to grow again, he should follow the principles long championed by ATR and NTU:
- Cut taxes, don’t raise them.
- Reform spending before demanding more from taxpayers.
- Make the city competitive, not punitive.
- Grow the tax base by making Baltimore worth staying in.
Until then, calling this proposal a “savings plan” is like calling a pickpocket a financial advisor.
Endnotes
- Cohn, Meredith. “Smart cuts or new taxes? Economists talk Baltimore’s 10-year plan to ‘save’ $2.5B.” The Baltimore Sun, December 2025.
(Primary reporting on Baltimore’s financial plan, including tax increases, property tax changes, and economist reactions.)
https://www.baltimoresun.com - Americans for Tax Reform. “The Case Against State and Local Income Tax Increases.” ATR Policy Brief, 2024.
(ATR explains the mobility risks and tax-base erosion caused by progressive income tax hikes.)
https://www.atr.org/ - Norquist, Grover. “Why Tax Hikes Never Lead to Fiscal Health.” Americans for Tax Reform, 2023 speech.
(Key ATR theme: governments have spending problems, not revenue problems; raising taxes accelerates out-migration.) - National Taxpayers Union. “Local Tax Burden and the Mobility of High Earners: What Cities Get Wrong.” NTU Foundation Report, 2024.
(NTU analysis showing that high-income residents are the most responsive to tax increases and often leave high-tax jurisdictions.)
https://www.ntu.org/ - National Taxpayers Union Foundation. “Property Tax Caps, Assessments, and the Hidden Growth of Local Taxes.” NTUF Issue Brief, 2023.
(Explains how cities lower rates but increase assessments, leading to higher net tax burdens — the policy model Baltimore’s plan resembles.) - Americans for Tax Reform. “Spending Restraint vs. Tax Increases: Why Reform Must Start with Government, Not Taxpayers.” ATR Analysis, 2022.
(Supports the article’s argument that Baltimore should cut spending before raising taxes.) - NTU Foundation. “Vacant Property Taxation: Why Punitive Rates Rarely Solve Urban Decline.” NTUF Urban Policy Study, 2022.
(Provides evidence that higher vacant-property taxes often backfire by deepening abandonment unless paired with regulatory reform.) - Maryland Department of Legislative Services. “Baltimore City Population and Revenue Trends, 2010–2025.” DLS Fiscal Briefing, 2025.
(Shows Baltimore’s ongoing population decline and its impact on the tax base, supporting concerns from ATR and NTU about the risks of tax hikes.)
Ethan MacDonald is a guest contributor for Direct Line News and the Montgomery County Republican Club.
Direct Line News is a Maryland-based free-access publication committed to the Republican reform tradition.
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