ANNAPOLIS -- The House of Delegates last night approved a plan that would raise about a half-billion dollars in new taxes to help the state balance a $12.5 billion budget. It also would allow the 23 counties and Baltimore to raise nearly that much again, on their own, to offset cuts in state aid.

Under the plan, approved 78-61 by the House of Delegates, you would have to pay more taxes every time you buy gasoline, fuel-guzzling cars, cigarettes, pretzels, potato chips or cafeteria food, or when you use your car phone or decide to wear a beeper on your belt.

If you're wealthy, you would pay higher income taxes; if you're a business, you would pay more whether you make money or not.

Local officials, who have been forced to absorb a quarter-billion-dollar reduction in state aid, would have the power to raise their local share of income taxes from a maximum 50 percent to 60 percent of the state tax and would have authority to increase a long list of other local taxes.

While the entire plan may not become law, the Maryland Senate has passed its own version of the budget and tax bills, and when the two houses reconcile their differences, taxes will be higher.

Although they acknowledged worries about retribution from constituents who are said to feel taxed to the point of rebellion, House proponents of the measure said they were satisfied the bill is sound and politically defensible.

Good schools, good transportation and adequate correctional systems "don't come without a price," said Majority Leader D. Bruce Poole, D-Washington, who spent several days corralling the votes to pass the package.

Marylanders, he said, understand the necessity of yesterday's vote. He said he thinks the political threat to those who voted for the tax bill is overstated.

"Voodoo economics is coming to an end. People understand it's a farce," he said, leveling a shot at the Republican opposition and recalling President Bush's 1980 description of former President Ronald Reagan's economic policies.

"The voters may be fooled for a while," Mr. Poole said, "but they're not dumb."

Speaking for the Republican opposition, Del. Martha S. Klima, R-Balto. Co., said yesterday's vote showed "a clear difference between those who think we need to provide more services [the Democrats] and those [the Republicans] who want to pull back and re-evaluate what we're doing."

The Senate has passed its own $245 million tax plan, but has not yet voted on either the gas-tax or local-piggyback-tax issues. Some form of tax increase is virtually guaranteed since both houses have passed budget-balancing tax bills.

Republicans led the opposition in the House, but they were joined by Democrats from suburban Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties as well as from Southern Maryland. They were outvoted by a coalition organized by the city and Montgomery and Prince George's counties.

Before the vote on taxes, Democratic leaders rebuffed the GOP attack on the budget and pushed the $12.5 billion spending plan to approval, 86-46.

"This is the largest tax package that has ever passed in the state of Maryland," said House Minority Leader Ellen Sauerbrey, R-Balt. Co.

"We're not here to be Robin Hood and take from the rich and give to the poor. . . . The bottom line is, we did not get sent down here to raise taxes," she said.

Del. Timothy F. Maloney, D-Prince George's, charged that Republicans were never serious about cutting the budget enough to close a $250 million gap between revenues and expenditures.

"Where are your cuts in this budget? They do not exist," he exclaimed.

He accused GOP lawmakers of being blind to the state's fiscal problems, in some cases fighting against minor tax increases that would help the most needy.

"There are those who say we should continue the [sales tax] exemption on dietary pet food even if it hurts nutrition programs for women, infants and children," he said.

He and other Democratic fiscal leaders also defended their proposal to allow local jurisdictions to raise the local piggyback income taxes.

Republican and Democratic county executives supported the move, they noted. They said they wanted to allow counties and Baltimore to raise local income taxes so they wouldn't have to impose drastic increases in their property taxes, which many people believe to be unfair taxes.

Baltimore would have had to raise its rate by 33 cents per $100 of assessed value to make up for lost revenues, they said. Baltimore County would face a 39-cent increase.

The Democrats argued that the Appropriations Committee had cut all the spending that could responsibly be trimmed from the fiscal 1993 budget, submitted earlier this session by Gov. William Donald Schaefer.

Republicans disagreed, pushing unsuccessfully for a series of additional budget cuts or limits on state spending they said would lessen the need for higher taxes.

Appropriations Chairman Charles J. Ryan Jr., D-Prince George's, said the budget responded to what the public demanded: It included some $500 million in spending cuts, at least half of that in local aid programs for Baltimore and the 23 counties. It reduced the number of state workers in every agency except the prison system, where the population is growing by more than 100 inmates a month.

He said the House also began this year the difficult task of reining in the runaway costs of Medicaid and welfare, huge programs that expand when times are bad and which are largely controlled by the federal government.

After all that, Mr. Ryan said, the budget still called for $175 million more in spending than the state expects to receive in tax revenue -- a gap he and other House leaders said should be filled with higher taxes.

If that was all House leaders had proposed, however, they might have had an easier time.

But to fill the $175 million hole, to provide a "hedge" in case revenue estimates are wrong for the seventh time in the past year and a half, and to pay for several new local aid programs, including a $30 million infusion for Baltimore and five poor rural counties, the House proposed a $251 million tax plan.

And that wasn't all.

Delegates also proposed a nickel-a-gallon gas tax increase, which would raise another $141 million, plus the increase in the piggybackrate.

Republicans added all the numbers up, including spinoff tax increases for local governments, and concluded that Democrats were pushing a billion-dollar tax plan on Marylanders.

Majority Leader Poole criticized such claims as "government by bumper sticker," saying no one really believes that every county is going to raise its piggyback rate to the maximum.

As for the gas tax, he said many delegates were for it until it was rolled into the same piece of legislation with the other tax measures, a move that gave the 141 delegates only one clear vote for or against taxes.

Del. Jean W. Roesser, R-Montgomery, proposed cutting $9.4 million from a stadium fund designed to help Baltimore attract a new professional football franchise.

She and other GOP lawmakers argued that the state was "sending the wrong message" to citizens when it cut spending for education, health and welfare while setting aside money for a football stadium.

But her idea was slapped down, 75-40, by lawmakers who said gaining a football franchise could have great economic importance to the state.

"An NFL franchise gives us clout, gives us prestige, gives us money," said Del. Gary Alexander, D-Prince George's.

Roll call on tax bill

FOR :

Albin, Leon, D-Baltimore County

Anderson, Curtis S., D-Baltimore

Athey, Tyras, D-Anne Arundel

Bonsack, Rose Mary Hatem, D-Harford

Boston, Frank D. Jr., D-Baltimore

Campbell, James W., D-Baltimore

Cummings, Elijah E., D-Baltimore

Curran, Gerald J., D-Baltimore

Davis, Clarence, D-Baltimore

Doory, Ann Marie, D-Baltimore

Dypski, Cornell N., D-Baltimore

Fry, Donald C., D-Harford

Fulton, Tony E., D-Baltimore

Harrison, Hattie N., D-Baltimore

Hergenroeder, Henry R. Jr., D-Baltimore

Huff, W. Ray, D-Anne Arundel

Hutchinson, Leslie, D-Baltimore County

Jefferies, John D., D-Baltimore

Kelley, Delores G., D-Baltimore

Kirk, Ruth M., D-Baltimore

Krysiak, Carolyn, D-Baltimore

Marriott, Salima S., D-Baltimore

Montague, Kenneth Jr., D-Baltimore

Murphy, Margaret H., D-Baltimore

McHale, Brian, D-Baltimore

Parham, Samuel M., D-Baltimore

Perkins, Anne S., D-Baltimore

Preis, Mary Louise, D-Harford

Rawlings, Howard P., D-Baltimore

Rosenberg, Samuel I., D-Baltimore

Thomas, Virginia M., D-Howard

Weir, Michael H., D-Baltimore County

AGAINST:

Arnick, John S., D-Baltimore County

Astle, John C., D-Anne Arundel

Bartenfelder, Joseph, D-Baltimore County

Bishop, John J., R-Baltimore County

Bissett, Phillip D., D-Anne Arundel

Brewster, Gerry, D-Baltimore County

Busch, Michael, D-Anne Arundel

Cadden, Joan, D-Anne Arundel

Craig, David R., R-Harford

DePazzo, Louis L., D-Baltimore County

Dewberry, Thomas E., D-Baltimore County

DiPietro, Anthony M. Jr., D-Baltimore

Dixon, Richard N., D-Carroll

Douglass, John, D-Baltimore

Ehrlich, Robert Jr., R-Baltimore County

Flanagan, Robert L., R-Howard

Galiazzo, Connie, D-Baltimore County

Gary, John G., R-Anne Arundel

Harkins, James M., R-Harford

Kach, A. Wade, R-Baltimore County

Kittleman, Robert H., R-Howard

Klima, Martha S., R-Baltimore County

Kolodziejski, Charles W., D-Anne Arundel

LaMotte, Lawrence A., D-Baltimore County

Levin, Theodore, D-Baltimore County

Maddox, E. Farrell, D-Baltimore County

Madden, Martin, R-Howard

Masters, Kenneth H., D-Baltimore County

Matthews, Richard C., R-Baltimore County

Morgan, John S., R-Howard

Morsberger, Louis P., D-Baltimore County

Perry, Marsha G., D-Anne Arundel

Ports, James F., R-Baltimore County

Redmer Jr., Alfred, R-Baltimore County

Rynd, Richard, D-Baltimore County

Sauerbrey, Ellen R., R-Baltimore County

Scannello, Patrick C., D-Anne Arundel

Sulin, Victor P., D-Anne Arundel

0$ Weisengoff, Paul E., D-Baltimore

NOT VOTING

Avara, R. Charles, D-Baltimore

Smith, Betty S., R-Anne Arundel