Over the last few days I see there’s been a minor dust-up in the conservative Maryland blogosphere stemming from a Washington Post article about a pro-gas tax rally in Annapolis last week. Specifically, the controversy has been over this bit:
Former Maryland Republican Party chairwoman Audrey Scott also attended, agreeing with other supporters that infrastructure is the key to economic growth and jobs. Scott also accentuated the need to safeguard transportation money, which too often has been tapped by governors from several administrations to plug other budget holes.
This has been interpreted by Michael Swartz, Richard Cross, and others as Audrey supporting an increase in the gas tax, and as such, a strong mark against her in her campaign for the MDGOP National Committeewoman spot.
If it’s true, then I’d have to agree that it’s pretty damning. But on the other hand, I know Audrey and I’ve seen the way she operated as MDGOP Chairman and it certainly didn’t seem in keeping with her, so I reached out to her for more clarification. This is what she had to say:
I wasn’t there to support a hike in the gas tax. I was there for one reason and one reason only – to speak out against Gov. O’Malley’s repeated raiding of the Transportation Trust Fund and to insist upon stronger protections for it so he and other tax and spend liberals can’t continue to do so.
When I agreed to attend the event, I was never told that calling for a gas tax increase would be any part of it and to be frank, I thought it was shameful to see others subverting what the rally should have been about – putting an end to wasteful spending and fiscal irresponsibility. Marylanders can’t afford a gas tax increase and I find it abhorrent that anyone could even consider imposing one.
Infrastructure is important to Maryland’s economic well-being, but the answer to fixing it isn’t raising taxes, it’s restraining spending and ensuring that the Transportation Trust Fund can’t be raided to fund O’Malley’s pet projects.
That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. It’s the right policy stance and it’s much more in keeping with all the things Chairman Scott has said and done in the past.
Plus, this is the Washington Post we’re talking about, an openly liberal paper that imports huge left-wingers like Obamacare cheerleader Ezra Klein – of course they’d take any opportunity to make it look like Republicans are getting behind a gas tax increase, even if the facts don’t back it up.
I don’t know if the others writing about the article bothered to talk to Audrey or not, but they ought to be ashamed of themselves if they didn’t. The GOP has enough problems of our own without parroting left-wing hit pieces from rags like WaPo.
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Sorry, Kevin, that doesn’t wash. If you know who else will be there and where they stand on the issue, then your participation is going to reflect this. Perhaps the proper venue to express her displeasure in this case would have been an op-ed or other written statement.
She should know that the press is going to be in favor of a gas tax, so I believe my point is still quite valid. If nothing else, they needed a Republican to be a prop and she chose to be there.
But is there any evidence to that effect? Do we know that Audrey knew who the speakers would be and what they would say, much less the stances of other people who, like her, were simply attendees at the event? Perhaps you’re inclined to do otherwise, but in general I prefer to give the most charitable interpretation unless there is evidence otherwise.
Before you answer though, think about the various Tea Party events you’ve gone to – did you always know who all the speakers would be and what they would say beforehand? Or what would be the sentiments expressed by other attendees at such rallies?
One in particular comes to mind – the one a few years back where someone had the bright idea to hang Frank Kratovil in effigy outside of his district office. As memory serves, you wrote about it having been there.
I know full well that isn’t something you’d agree with, but should you be held liable for the expression having been there (and if you weren’t should have you been held liable had you been there) or should you be considered as only supporting the point you were there to make, particularly if you make clear afterwards that you disapprove of that action and were there to protest Kratovil’s support of the leftist agenda and wasteful spending?
Well, if she didn’t know what the rally was going to call for, I’m guessing she didn’t do her homework. Either way, not what I’m looking for in a WCW.
Yes I was at the Kratovil rally, and the TEA Party was tarred with that brush, unfairly or not. (I recall that being a facepalm moment and said in my coverage that it was unnecessary and over the top.)
All Audrey had to look at the Greater Baltimore Committee website to see their legislative agenda, which features a call to “increase TTF revenues by $500 million.” http://www.gbc.org/reports/2012-LegislativeAgenda.pdf
In simpler language, it means raise the gas tax.
[...] she was only at the rally to support protecting the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF), a position she staked out at Kevin Waterman’s Questing for Atlantis website. Apparently she also defended herself at [...]
Kevin, you want evidence? The Greater Baltimore Committee taped the rally. (See http://www.gbc.org/news/2163/ ) You can count the yourself repeated calls by speakers for an increase in the gas tax.
Or you can look at the way rally organizers billed its goals:
“The rally was conducted by the Statewide Alliance for Restoring the Trust (START). The coalition is comprised of the GBC, the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Maryland Chamber of Commerce, more than a dozen county and local chambers of commerce, and more than 50 organizations and businesses. It seeks to convince members of the General Assembly to adopt recommendations made by the state’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Transportation Funding to increase annual revenue to the transportation fund by $800 million.”