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Last updated at June 18, 2013

The Exodus Out of Maryland

IRS Has Stopped Publicly Reporting MD Data

January 28, 2013

by Daniel Bongino

Do you want to save our state? Not your state, not my state, but our state. Your child’s education, the value of your home, the quality of our hospitals and, correspondingly, your health, are not Democratic or Republican concerns. They are our concerns. A party label does not make Maryland any less my home than yours.

If you want to save this beautiful place, blessed by the Creator with natural gifts too numerous to count, then it is time to get serious. Action matters. In case you have failed to notice, we are losing people. The tax-and-spend opponents of common sense are acting while we are talking. Maryland is suffering from an exodus of its citizens. When asked why they are leaving, the most common answer is, “you can’t do business here.” These are IRS statistics, not my opinion. In fact, these IRS statistics were so damaging to the tax-and-spend crowds in states such as Maryland, California and New York, that the IRS simply stopped publicly reporting the data.

Taxes are a fact of life: police, fire, a corruption-free court system– but when is enough, enough? We have suffered through six years of tax and fee hikes from Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, with the promise of a balanced budget. It has not happened. He continues to play budget games by shifting money from dedicated funding streams such as our transportation fund and then borrows money to replace it. As if this brazen scheme wasn’t enough, he is now pushing for more tax hikes, all while spending billions more of our tax money than when he took office. How many times can phony politicians meme the words “roads and bridges” and “balanced budgets” with nothing to show for it, before even the most ardent supporters begin to cringe in disbelief? When Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich left office in 2007 his total budget was $28.7 billion, now we are spending $37.3 billion. I am not a mathematician, but I am confident that $37.3 billion is $8.6 billion more dollars than 28.7 billion dollars.

While we suffer from an ever-increasing tax load, and Marylanders continue to flee the state, Texas and Indiana have record budget surpluses and are actually refunding taxpayer money back to their citizens. The influx of people to these states, choosing to live there rather than high-tax states like Maryland, New York and California, have options. They have the money and growing economies to deal with the problems they face in their state and we do not, and it is only getting worse. Economist Herb Stein once said, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” This pattern of taking our money, spending more than taken in, and then lying about it, cannot go on. The unfortunate irony is that the supporters of the big government that suffocates cannot continue their grand plans without raiding the pantries of business owners and their employees who are refusing to comply and speaking with their moving vans.

The Democratic Party has chosen to invest millions into Texas, getting out ahead of its growing, national electoral-power. I write about this because the fight is here, the fight is now. There is no running from it. Tax and spend, fraudulent “public servants” and their interest groups, bent on bankruptcy, will follow you everywhere. Stand your ground, cede not another inch, fight here or rue the day you abdicated your responsibility and allowed your state to slowly wither away. You owe it to your country and your children. Stand proudly and tell your friends, neighbors and family that today is the day we stop stealing from our children and save our state.

Daniel Bongino

Daniel Bongino began his career with the NYPD in 1995 as a Police Cadet while attending The City University of New York full time. During his tenure in the Cadet program, Daniel was a member of the distinguished pattern identification unit which specialized in the identification and apprehension of serial criminals. Daniel proudly joined the ranks of the U.S. Secret Service in 1999 as a Special Agent where he graduated the Secret Service training academy with honors. Beginning his career in the New York Field Office, he was assigned to investigate federal crimes, including but not limited to, computer crimes, bank fraud, credit card fraud, protective intelligence and counterfeiting. His early career was marked by a number of investigative successes. Although the details of his signature investigation are still for official use only, it involved over 300 million dollars in potential financial fraud and a nexus to international terrorism. This joint investigation in cooperation with the FBI, IRS, SSA and a number of local police agencies, was responsible for collapsing a major international fraud ring. The investigation earned Daniel the Department of Justice recognition award, along with other agency specific awards, for excellence in federal investigations. Daniel left the New York Field Office in 2002 to become an instructor at the Secret Service Training Academy in Beltsville, Maryland. He was the project manager for the re-design of the investigative tactics training program which he subsequently taught to incoming trainees. Daniel was awarded a number of commendations for his work in researching and re-designing the investigative curriculum to reflect current trends in federal crime. In 2006, Daniel entered into duty on the elite Presidential Protection Division in the administration of President George W. Bush, graduating at the top of his class in the difficult detail training program. Daniel distinguished himself early by becoming one of the earliest tenured Special Agents to be given responsibility for an operational section of the protective detail. Daniel remained on protective duty during the change in administration to President Barack Obama and again distinguished himself by quickly becoming the highest ranking member of his operational shift of agents. With this distinction came greater responsibility and Daniel quickly rose to the challenge. He was designated as the lead agent responsible for the coordination of the President’s trip to Prague for the signing of the START treaty, his visit to Jakarta, Indonesia, among a myriad of terror threats, and finally as the lead agent responsible for the President’s visit to an active war zone in Afghanistan. With the successful coordination of these historic events, Daniel was awarded a series of commendations and left the protective detail as one of the most distinguished agents in their history. Daniel transferred to the Baltimore Field Office in 2010 where he immediately made an impact on the community, breaking up one of the largest fraud rings in Maryland’s history.