MoCo Memories: A Decade Under "Tax-Hike" Ike

"Everything I feared about our new County Executive is true: he is as patronizing and wishy-washy as any politician capable of earning the title 'Nice Guy' can be," wrote an East County MoCo blogger in November 2006. Upset that Isiah "Ike" Leggett seemed to brush off his big tax-and-spending desires on local transportation, the blogger of JustUpThePike.com was adament that he would be heard by the new County Executive at the Chevy Chase community meeting. Ike had promised the voters a moratorium on new development in Montgomery County just a few months earlier in winning the Democratic primary. But now, in November of 2006, that wasn't what this blogger, a handful of transit special interests, or the big developers and contractors in the county wanted. There was money to be taxed, taken from the productive economy, parceled out and spent. There were special interests to rule and taxpayer associations to ignore.

"In terms of political capital, Isiah "Ike" Leggett must qualify as a zillionaire. Having served 16 years on the Montgomery County Council while hardly making an enemy, he won the race for county executive last month in a landslide without breaking a sweat or raising his voice. The man has clout," wrote the breathless Washington Post editorial board in December 2006. Ike was the Democrat machine. The machine was Ike.

Flash forward ten years later. Mr. Ike Leggett has won re-election twice, despite saying he would only seek election one more time. The second time, in 2014, Ike survived by beating Doug Duncan in a contested Democratic primary in which he received less than 50% of support from his party's core voters. He has raised property taxes on Montgomery County families a whopping seven times. He has raised various surcharges and a tax on energy purchased by community businesses. He promises yet another property tax hike if his county government is forced to privatize Montgomery County's liquor business. The majority of the voting public seems open to privatizing this relic of 1930s Prohibition. Mr. Leggett, does not. Try as he might, Tax-Hike Ike's push for an "Independent Transit Authority" have been rebuffed by the general public, at least so far.

What a difference ten years can make. What happened to the pragmatic, supposedly pro-business and fiscally sound leader of 2006? How much longer will Montgomery County families have to work and live under increasing taxes and costs with less services or choices from their government? The decade-plus of Tax-Hike Ike Leggett as County Exec is, thankfully, closing. The future, hopefully, will shine once again.