Tax reform to believe in

Americans could scarcely be blamed for viewing any proposal to "simplify" taxes with skepticism. From Steve Forbes' flat tax of 1996 to Herman Cain's recent 9-9-9 proposal, efforts to make taxes simpler have usually meant — at least when held...

High and dry

One can hardly blame the boating public for feeling a bit of sticker shock at news that the Maryland Department of Natural Resources wants to triple registration fees for most boaters. The recession has hit the boating industry hard, gas prices are...

Kamenetz stands alone

If Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan to shift some teacher pension costs to the counties is approved by the legislature, no jurisdiction will take so large a hit in the first year as Baltimore County. Poorer jurisdictions are due to get an influx of direct...

Gender identity and bathrooms in Balto. Co.

Tuesday night, the Baltimore County Council has a chance to send a powerful message about equality and fairness to all Marylanders when it votes on a bill to extend the county's anti-discrimination laws to cover transgender people. In the county...

Santorum and 'phony theology'

At first, it seemed as if Rick Santorum was questioning President Barack Obama's religious faith. Now, it appears that what he meant was to question the faith of all Americans who believe clean water, air and land is in the public interest.

Baltimore County transgender legislation

A step for equality

The House of Delegates' vote Friday night in favor of the Civil Marriage Protection Act was a tremendous step forward for equality and justice and for the rights of Maryland families. For many of the 72 delegates who supported same-sex marriage,...

The Last Task of Hercules

Help for the unemployed?

While it’s ill-advised to read too much into any weekly or monthly report on the nation’s jobs outlook, the latest unemployment numbers are heartening, not merely because weekly applications for unemployment benefits fell to a four-year...

More protection for victims of abusive relationships

"He will not stop and doesn't take 'no' for an answer," Hagerstown resident Heather Harris wrote last May in a handwritten appeal for court protection against her abusive ex-boyfriend, Randy McPeak. Less than a month later, Ms. Harris was murdered by...

Disgrace in the Senate

In using his public office for private gain, Sen. Ulysses Currie disgraced the Maryland Senate. Today, in rendering its final judgment on that offense, the Senate has disgraced itself. The upper chamber of the Maryland General Assembly voted...

Schurick trial: A punishment to fit the crime

Considering that Paul Schurick faced as much as 12 years in prison for his role in a 2010 election day robocall that fraudulently urged voters to stay home from the polls, the sentence handed down today to former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s 2010...

Marriage, equality and Maryland

Anne Arundel County Del. Robert A. Costa will never get mistaken for a liberal. The Republican firefighter from Deale is a proud member of the National Rifle Association and aU.S. Army veteran who sports a 78 percent lifetime rating from the...

Baltimore Grand Prix: Good money after bad?

When it became clear that the Baltimore Grand Prix was in financial ruin and wouldn't be able to pay the city millions it owed in taxes and expense reimbursement — not to mention millions more it owed to the state and to assorted vendors...

Football and free speech

Division I college football coaches live a life focused on one thing — winning college football games. For this they are richly rewarded with salary, fame and adulation above and beyond what any amateur sport probably ought to provide.

Closing Baltimore's ethics loopholes

Disclosure of possible conflicts of interest is crucial to maintaining public trust in government and in ensuring that elected officials maintain the highest standards of conduct. But Baltimore has managed to render something so important a near...

The AP achievement gap

For the fourth year in a row, Maryland students have topped the nation in the proportion of high school graduates who successfully passed the rigorous Advanced Placement exams, leaping even further ahead of other top states. Twenty-nine percent of...

City police and the moving picture

What's most troubling about the Baltimore Police Department's new rules regarding the public videotaping of police is that any new rules were required in the first place. The notion that some cadre of uniformed officers — perhaps even a...

Birth control compromise

KAL is back

The Sun is welcoming back an old friend to its opinion pages: cartoonist Kevin “KAL” Kallaugher.  He’ll bring his sharp wit and inimitable style to a weekly take on the news in Maryland and beyond. Next Sunday, he’ll...

Room for improvement

In the fictional Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon, made famous by public radio hostGarrison Keillor,"all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." But real life doesn't work that way — a fact...

The homeless politician

It's nothing new for politicians' opponents to try to throw them out of office by claiming they don't live in the district they represent. But the effort to unseat Annapolis Alderman Kenneth Kirby comes with an unusual twist. Republicans have...

The GOP's politics of pessimism

In a Chrysler advertisement aired during halftime of Sunday's Super Bowl, actor and director Clint Eastwood says, "I've seen a lot of tough eras, a lot of tough downturns in my life, times when we didn't understand each other. It seems we've lost our...

Mr. Abbas' mission

Signs of movement toward renewed cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have Israeli officials on edge. Israel considers Hamas a terrorist organization committed to its destruction and has shunned negotiations. In the wake of...

O'Brien's quixotic fight

Recently, Cardinal-designateEdwin F. O'Brienwrote a stirring letter to all those who worship in the Baltimore Archdiocese, calling on their help to "regain our religious freedom." The impassioned call to arms suggests the federal government has dealt...

Arundel English-only bill: A hostile, empty gesture

County Councilman Jerry Walker wants to make English the official language of Anne Arundel County. That would make perfect sense if English weren't already, for all practical purposes, the county's official language. When was the last time you...

Proposition 8 ruling: A limited win for equality

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding a lower court's ruling that California's Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage, was unconstitutional is surely a good outcome and an advance for equality. Already backers of same-sex marriage...

What's in a name?

Stray Camel Way. Sealed Message Road. Misty Rise. Fragile Sail Way.

Intervention in Syria

Payroll tax deadline approaches — again

The latest news in Washington on the payroll tax cut is that there's not much news. To the surprise of no one, negotiators in Congress are exactly where they were last December when the tax break was extended two months — gridlocked.