“So let’s get to work.” (Then we’ll pick your pocket.)

Once again, I probably saved a half-hour in my life by reading over Martin O’Malley’s “State of the State” address. Obviously he’s only been in office two weeks so he has no accomplishments to speak of – hell he doesn’t even have his full cabinet yet.

But of course, he had to get in his gratutitous slams. Moments after noting that Maryland has “good and decent people on both sides of these debates (over the death penalty, slots, etc.)” he then remarked, “We cannot resolve every unsettled issue in just 90 days; nor can we heal in 90 days divisions that were four years in the making.” He also opened the speech by noting, “the drift of recent years.”

On a philosophical level, O’Malley is making mostly proper initiatives insofar as most of these items will be paid for (and paid for, and paid for some more) by Maryland’s taxpayers. The only whining he did about something he wanted from the federal government was asking for an expanded National Capital Region (ostensibly to receive more federal funding.)

But on a practical level, there are many problems that I think Maryland will face because of O’Malley’s so-called solutions. I can just run right through the text of the speech to point out a few of the more egregious ones; it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

I’ll start with where O’Malley states, “we now have an opportunity to put professional regulators back on the job at the Public Service Commission.” Regardless of who he places on the PSC, the fact remains that energy is going to cost more in the near-term future. A sustainable business model cannot be had by going back to the days where utilities have to beg and plead to raise rates. Further, in order to comply with the almost-certain state mandates on pollution control, the utilities need to raise the money from someplace. Putting anti-business hyper-environmentalists on the PSC will do nothing for consumers in the long-term, but by then O’Malley will be on to his next political stop.

(W)e will also start making regular, measurable strides toward increasing the participation of minority and women-owned businesses in the economy of our state,” continued the governor. To me, that sounds like just more set-asides and other discriminatory programs in state government. I want the best businesses to succeed, regardless of ownership. How many times has it been the case where the money behind the business is from white males, with the token woman or minority owner just to qualify for the set-asides?

Martin then worked through a number of spending programs for both K-12 education and working to freeze the cost of college tuition. The sad fact is that college costs will continue to rise regardless, and the costs passed on through additional fees or a higher cost for room and board. A tuition freeze sounds great, but tuition is only part of the outlay. Meanwhile, I suppose building new facilities for K-12 is a good idea, but I’m not sure at all that bricks and mortar will solve the problems within our public schools.

O’Malley spent a good deal of his effort on proposing his solutions to our health care issue. “Among other things the (Maryland Healthcare A)ct will create a Health Insurance Exchange to help small businesses find more affordable coverage for their employees – on a pretax basis. It will require insurance companies to allow younger adults up to age 25 to be covered under their parents’ policies. And it will also provide healthcare coverage to more children in our state.

The biggest trouble I see with this concept is that it applies more of a burden on the companies that sell health insurance in the state of Maryland. Unfortunately. O’Malley doesn’t address how this HIE program will promote competition. With the number of coverage mandates Maryland has, it’s like giving the consumer a choice of a Cadillac, Lexus, BMW, or Ferrari when their budget dictates a Chevrolet.

(As an aside, MPPI Senior Fellow Marc Kilmer has a good commentary piece regarding health insurance in today’s Baltimore Examiner. Kilmer also touched on this subject in a recent monoblogue interview.)

You know, Governor O’Malley worries a lot more about “saving the bay” than I do. Believe me, I lived by Lake Erie and if mankind couldn’t kill that body of water, I’m not worried much about Chesapeake Bay. Obviously there are a lot of common-sense solutions and Salisbury getting a good chunk of the $138 million O’Malley pledges toward improving local water and wastewater systems would help a great deal.

However, saying that, “(e)very dollar of Open Space funding this year – an estimated $289 million – will be spent on open space” means that the state will spend huge money buying land to take it off county tax rolls and further burden the counties who need the revenue themselves. And re-establish the Office of Smart Growth? Martin, let’s just call a spade a spade – it’ll be the office of anti-growth. It’s bad enough your party’s established a terrible business climate in Maryland (with the possible exception of one being a woman or minority), now you want to really make things tough by killing residential development.

And of course we come to where Marylanders “accept our responsibility in the fight against global warming.” Leaving aside that we really don’t have a lot to do about global warming, this was the opening for O’Malley to press for passage of the Clean Cars Act.

The biggest problem I see with the CCA is that it’ll raise the price of new cars anywhere from $200 to $1000. It’ll be a boon to car dealers in adjacent states that don’t have similar restrictions, but it also may mean that older, more polluting cars stay on the road longer. Moreover, those polluting heaps will sit in traffic that’s becoming worse.

Martin O’Malley and his allies seem to think that if you throw more money at mass transit, people will take advantage of it. Of the billion-plus dollars devoted to transportation in his budget, over 20% will go toward mass transit projects. The reality is that these modes of transport won’t ever carry more than a small fraction of the workforce and negligible amounts of non-commuter trips. These budgetary dollars simply do not address where the demand is and will be.

These are the monetary issues I have with the “State of the State” address. I also have an issue with some of the attitude.

This year, together, we are choosing to make progress on the priorities of the people who elected us. Implicit, however, in the choices we make this year is the faith that we have the courage to face up to the fiscal reality before us in the year ahead.”

“If not, we risk going back to a time that we were not particularly proud of — making life less affordable for middle-class families. Cutting funds to local government. Stealing from our children’s future by taking money away from open space, and shifting transportation dollars away from reducing traffic. I don’t believe that is the sort of future we would choose.”

Well, Governor O’Malley, what I chose was to have a fiscally responsible governor who didn’t find every excuse in the book to balloon the size of government. Unfortunately, I was in the minority in the last election. However, I don’t plan on being in the minority in 2010, nor it is likely you’ll earn my vote by advocating the programs you advocate.

Unfortunately, the GOP’s response left me wanting as well. It did a brief job of comparing and contrasting the Ehrlich record with O’Malley’s proposals, but I wanted to see some alternatives given to the people of Maryland as well.

Start by making Maryland more business-friendly by instituting tort reform and allowing more competition in the health insurance industry by reducing or eliminating coverage mandates. Worry less about the school buildings and more about the students. How about allowing state school funding to follow the child regardless of the schooling choice made by the parents?

Rather than re-establishing an “Office of Smart Growth”, let those who know the local situation best in the counties and municipalities decide what is smart growth for them. Instead of more regulations for the auto industry, accept the choice that most Free Staters have made as far as their personal commutes go and build better, safer highways.

The Maryland Republican Party missed an opportunity in their response. Let’s not be like the Democrats in Congress, who won not because they presented a better alternative, but simply because the GOP House and Senate members failed in living up to their promises. We are the party of better ideas, let’s act like it.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.