Ladies and gentlemen, I have been in government and politics for a
long time—almost three and a half decades—and I know from personal
experience what we can expect to hear from those not directly respon-
sible for the fiscal affairs of Maryland and those more concerned with the
political advantages of the present rather than the unattended needs of
the future. They will continue to contend that the tax increase legislation
should never have been enacted in the first place and, I say emphatically,
they will continue to be wrong. We were playing it safe—if funds were
needed, we would have them, if not needed, authority was available to
reduce or revoke the tax increase. Economics is, at best, an inexact
science. Thus, the figures presented to me by the Board of Revenue
Estimates in December, 1963, were, no doubt, conservative simply because
the board, as a unit, was reluctant at that time to wager the financial
stability of State government on the supposition or the gamble that the
Federal income tax cut would provide sufficient stimulus to offset the
need for increased revenue through a State tax program. One member
of the board, Mr. John A. Luetkemeyer, State Treasurer and a prominent
Baltimore banker, in refusing to accept the suppositions that the

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