March 2008 – Page 2

WCRC meeting – March 2008

County issues took center stage at our meeting tonight, the first under our new President Marc Kilmer. After taking care of the usual business at hand, we heard from John Cannon, the Wicomico County Council President, who joked that he would, “correct everything you have read in the paper.” More seriously, he described the GOP-majority Council as “working well” with Democrat County Executive Rick Pollitt.

But there were a couple differences Cannon brought up, including the veto of a collective bargaining measure with the Sheriff’s Department. Noting that the bill “was not written very well,” Cannon gave the County Council’s side of the controversy. As originally intended, binding arbitration was to be enacted on both the executive and legislative branches; however, by the county’s Charter, the County Council cannot add expenditures to the budget submitted by the County Executive – they can only deduct. Thus, had binding arbitration remained in effect with the Council they could not bargain in good faith due to the fact that by charter they had no right to enact any increases on behalf of the Sheriff’s Department stemming from negotiations. Instead, the Council amended the bill to delete binding arbitration on only their part, that amended bill was vetoed by Rick Pollitt, and the veto was overriden by the County Council. As it stands, binding arbitration is only effective with the County Executive and threatened litigation by the union has not come to pass. In Cannon’s words, the Council made the effort to “maintain integrity between the County Executive and County Council.”

Then the subject turned to issues with auditing. While Rick Pollitt has hired a forensic auditor to investigate the theivery at the county landfill, the question was raised by County Council about the auditor Wicomico County uses and why items such as these were missed. It is within the County Council’s power to select an auditor for the annual audit and this would be a factor in selecting one for the next year. County Council has also sweetened the incentives for hiring an internal auditor, with the original pay rate offered deemed to be too low to attract someone with the requisite experience and qualifications.

Cannon also revealed that specific questions were asked during last year’s budget process, with several centering on those very issues of the large increase sought for purchasing diesel fuel and other increased expenditures by Public Works. The increase in diesel fuel cost was chalked up to the earlier purchase of additional trucks and their usage, meanwhile other increases were required because of a claim that previously deferred maintenance would be undertaken during the fiscal year. These discussions were revealed after Cannon requested the tape of the original budgetary meeting with Rai Sharma be transcribed. A further lament uttered by Cannon was the “use it or lose it” mentality of some county departments, spending down whatever surplus they had during the year to maintain their allocation.

Another budgetary question from those in the audience regarded enterprise accounts, such as those for the Civic Center or the landfill. While there are problems at times, Cannon did express his faith in the process. (When John reads this, I would be interested to know where he stands on privatizing the liquor business here in Wicomico County, another enterprise account as I understand it.) A later remark centered on the tax differential, which is being studied as the county addresses its role in funding at the Salisbury Zoo and money that the city of Salisbury claims is owed to them by Wicomico County per a 1998 agreement. It was also revealed this evening that Salisbury City Councilwoman Debbie Campbell questioned the county’s lack of support for the Salisbury Festival at their City Council meeting.

Other items Cannon mentioned were the need for more “clarity” in defining the relationships the county staff has with the Council and County Executive, and the agreement reached with a developer on how the county’s first private sewer treatment facility would be funded and maintained. Upon the buildout of the development the county would take over full responsibilty with a sinking fund paid for by development residents as backup in case problems occur before that point. John hinted that this could be a first step toward a countywide wastewater authority.

A final point Cannon made was upcoming work on the county’s comprehensive plan and how growth would be handled. Despite more restrictive zoning, land values have continued to rise over the last decade but farmers and other landowners have concerns about zoning so restrictive that their land could be rendered worthless. John talked briefly about the incentive of tradable development rights (TDR’s) which could allow for more dense development in certain areas with the tradeoff of preserving other land for agricultural use in perpetuity.

It was a lot packed into a relatively brief presentation. Once John finished we got into other club and party business, discussing among other things the need for volunteers at the Salisbury Festival, somewhat dismal voter registration numbers, and more hopeful news from the Young Republicans as membership has grown to 25, with the goal of 50 members by year’s end. Not just planning strictly political activities, the YR’s looked to participate in this year’s Relay For Life and help out other charitable organizations as well.

In the midst of that we had the Central Committee report, which focused more on the abundance of press coverage given to Democrat Frank Kratovil as he seeks the First Congressional District seat. Because I’m also the press liaison for the club, I was asked to report on press efforts made each month and will add that to my duties. Dr. Bartkovich also asked the club to “pay attention” to events going on in the county, especially with the landfill investigation.

To close things out, we heard briefly from Dustin Mills, local representative for the Andy Harris campaign. The Congressional race had taken a back seat for the time being, noted Dustin, because Andy was “working hard” in Annapolis. Harris also got kudos from Cannon, who again took the floor to mention Andy’s assistance in allowing a microbrewery to open up near downtown Salisbury – it required a change in state law and both Senator Harris and Senator Lowell Stoltzfus were quite helpful, opined the County Council President.

Our next meeting is Monday, April 28th and the scheduled speaker is Delegate Addie Eckardt, a frequent subject of my posts lately as she toils in the General Assembly.

Speaking of my posts, I can foreshadow this because I wrote tomorrow morning’s post earlier this evening. Two of the issues I discuss are the Kratovil press coverage Dr. Bartkovich alluded to earlier and an amendment that Senator Harris sponsored in the Maryland Senate. So check back about noontime tomorrow as I suggest some lunchtime reading.

Odds and ends no. 12

This morning there’s not a lot of news out there, so I’ll place a smorgasbord of small items and updates in this post.

First is a mini-Election Calendar. Tonight I’m inviting you to our monthly Wicomico County Republican Club meeting starting at 7 p.m. with the social hour and getting down to business at 7:30 p.m. under our newly elected President Marc Kilmer (an occasional monoblogue commenter who I butt heads with from time to time. Despite that he’s a good guy and I look forward to serving under him.) Our speaker this month will be John Cannon, and hopefully he’ll be armed with information about the state of Wicomico County as we struggle with a number of issues like Landfillgate and its associated audit, the Davis Ruark situation, slowing tax receipts, budgetary dealings, privatization of liquor sales, and the possibility of a new Civic Center. (Think we could hit up Perdue for naming rights? That may bring in a few million.)

And just as an FYI, our next two speakers will be fresh out of this year’s General Assembly session. Delegate Addie Eckardt will be the guest speaker on April 28 and after a break for Memorial Day Delegate Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio takes her turn on June 23.

The other meeting of note next week will be the Lower Shore Young Republicans meeting at 7:00 on Thursday, March 27. They’ve gotten off to an impressive start and have grown enough to need a regular meeting site that can accomodate those interested. Both meetings will be held at the Salisbury Chamber of Commerce, 144 E. Main Street in Salisbury.

Sticking with politics, I got a note from Delegate Rick Impallaria (via the ever-handy Gail Bartkovich) that alerted me to how the House of Delegates voted on the FY2009 budget. While it passed with 34 votes against, Delegate Impallaria notes that is the highest vote total against in the six years he’s been in the General Assembly. Of the nine Eastern Shore Delegates, six of the seven Republicans voted “no” – the only exception being Delegate Page Elmore of District 38A. Not surprisingly, neither of the two Democrats voted against the O’Malley budget.

To change the subject drastically, sometimes monoblogue gets results. On Friday I lamented the absence of new posts on Karen’s A Woman’s Point of View. Yesterday she returned with a new post and a little credit to me for bringing her back. So enjoy reading and encourage her to write some more! You won’t be sorry.

Last Tuesday I was excited about my alma mater‘s women’s basketball team getting to the Big Dance – alas, it was a short trip as Miami University lost to Louisville 81-67. The other bummer was having the game on at the same time as Maryland vs. Coppin State so I didn’t get to watch. Our men’s team lost in their tournament as well, so it was a tough week all around. But the Miami hockey team did make the 16-team NCAA field despite losing to Michigan in their conference tournament (Central Collegiate Hockey Association) and will be the #1 seed in the Northeast Region, playing #4 seed Air Force in their opener.

So that’s a nice little breakfast buffet of stuff. Tonight I’ll discuss the WCRC meeting and hopefully have some good info about how Wicomico County is doing.

House Bill 1253 – another state hammer

If you own property along the shores of Chesapeake Bay or the Atlantic Ocean, you might want to pay attention. Not satisfied with the amount of regulation already in place for development in those areas considered “critical areas”, the General Assembly (with the backing of the O’Malley Administration) is looking to really put the screws to both landowners and local jurisdictions by expanding both the area placed under these restrictions and the power of the state to control how smaller units of government enforce these laws.

First of all, I need to thank “The Waterman” for bringing this item to my attention. HB1253 passed its second reading (as amended) on March 18 so the final vote will likely be cast next week in the House of Delegates. There are three things that strike me as being onerous regarding this bill:

The bill changes which areas are deemed to count toward the percentage of lot coverage guidelines. Where the standard is now simply impervious surfaces such as the house or building, pavement, sidewalks, and the like, the new standards change the definition to lot coverage, which also includes items like overhanging balconies or decks.
For subdivisions, the new proposal expands buffer areas threefold, from 100 feet to 300 feet.
Most troublingly, enforcement of these laws is changed so that each violation is a separate offense and each day the violation exists is also a separate offense. This is so that fines and penalties can be ratcheted up more easily and you know it’s all about money to the state.

One thing I found intriguing (but not surprising) in the bill’s original fiscal note is that about 1/9 or 11% of the state falls under the critical area guidelines as currently written. Of course, within that 11% falls practically all of the state’s most desirable real estate so the impact on people in my profession is most profound. It’s another layer of red tape that we have to deal with in creating good projects for those who wish to develop their land. While some jurisdictions are fairly by-the-book strict, others tend to be a little more reasonable in allowing flexibility with what can be placed, and still others pretty much allow anything. This bill attempts to eliminate local judgment calls, which is unfortunate because a few bad apples spoiled a good thing.

Finally I noticed that this bill, which wasn’t introduced until February 8th, sailed through the process with a reasonably speedy hearing – unlike a certain other bill for which I submitted written testimony. Of course, the O’Malley Administration is foursquare behind this proposal which helps but the reason it wasn’t introduced until later in the process is that the bill reflects a study done by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation that wasn’t completed until last month. And whatever the CBF wants, the environmentalists in the General Assembly are sure to try and give it to them.

I’ve said it before – in most places those who favor bigger, more intrusive government sell their programs by telling us, “it’s for the children.” In Maryland, the appeal that can sell almost anything is telling residents “it’s for the Bay.” House Bill 1253 is yet another example and despite my objections I’m betting it’ll be law by midyear.

Nice timing

On Friday I wrote about HB608, or as Delegate Eckardt called it, the “light bulb bill.” As I mentioned I glance through the inserts but normally don’t pay attention.

Wouldn’t you know it, yesterday’s mail had my April electric bill and inside was an insert that said, in part:

Delmarva Power is committed to helping customers save energy, save money and protect the environment. That’s why we have started a discount program to encourage the purchase of ENERGY STAR compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) at participating Maryland retailers.

To fund this important energy conservation program for residential customers, Delmarva Power is adding a “Demand Side Management Surcharge” of $0.000029 per kilowatt-hour to the bills of the residential customers beginning the billing month of March. The impact of this additional charge on a residential customer’s bill will vary from customer to customer, and is dependent on the amount of energy the customer uses each month.

(snip)

The surcharge covers discounts associated with the purchase of the CFLs at the participating stores, customer awareness, promotions, and the administrative costs of the program.

The concept of HB608 was one allowing me to opt-in and pay these sorts of charges on my bill only if I chose to. Sure, it’s just 3 cents on my bill (based on the 947 kWh I used this month) but it goes with the 14 cent environmental surcharge, the 37 cent fee for “Universal Service Program”, and 59 cents for a Maryland Franchise Tax – I’m paying an extra dollar-plus for items that aren’t running this computer.

The market for CFL bulbs hasn’t progressed to the point where it’s obvious they’re the best choice, so other entities have had to enter the marketplace and twist it in such a way that we’re forced to buy these bulbs like them or not. As part of Congress’s so-called Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (HR6) there’s a provision (Section 321) which mandates light bulbs create more light with less energy, e.g. a 100-watt bulb has to create the same amount of light using just 72 watts. It was thought that this little-noticed provision could spell the end of the incandescent light bulbs as we know them, so after 2011 we’ll pretty much be forced to deal with CFL bulbs unless the technology for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) catches up by then.

I have nothing against CFL bulbs except the price and associated hassles I’ll discuss below – price-wise at Wal-Mart a pack of three will run you $8.58. What Delmarva Power has done is secure a discounted price at particular stores (Wal-Mart isn’t one of them) to serve as an incentive to buy these bulbs. It would be fine if everyone wasn’t paying for it through their electric bills, or at least had the opportunity to refuse paying the charge.

And then there’s the hassle. When my regular incandescent bulb goes out I toss it in the garbage. With a CFL bulb I’m supposed to take it to a special recycling center because of the mercury content, but none exist on the Lower Shore. If I drop and break the bulb, I’m not supposed to vacuum it up but open the window, leave the room for 15 minutes, don rubber gloves upon returning, carefully pick up the shards, place them in a plastic bag, seal it, place the cleanup materials in a second plastic bag along with the first plastic bag, and then immediately take it outside to a sealed trash container. And if I do have to use a vacuum cleaner I’m supposed to take it outside after finishing and run it for an hour to flush out the mercury. Well, there goes that savings!

Does that sound ridiculous? Of course! But all of us in Delmarva Power are going to pay for this program. Thank you very much, environmentalist wackos.

Crossposted on Red Maryland.

Weekend of local rock volume 11

And it sounded like eleven too. This was the show I checked out last night:

The who, what, where, when, and why about last night's show. It's a neat poster that I allocated, after all they were done with it.

I actually thought there would be three bands, so it was nice to get a bonus fourth. More on them in a bit. First up came that cast of characters known as Goatbag.

One of my few Goatbag shots that came out. As always, they start out in costume and it's kind of fun to see them as they set up before they change into their stuff.

They played sort of a short set, maybe a half hour, but it was enough time for the pancakes to be made. You had to be there.

In the second slot came the “bonus” band out of Union City, New Jersey known as Lamps Burning.

Lamps Burning was fast, heavy, and possessed a lot of energy, particularly lead singer Chris Barretto. You'll see him again on this post.

I wouldn’t mind seeing these guys make a return trip at some point. And while they have an energetic front man, these three are pretty solid in their own right:

From left to right is Chris Vargas on bass, Rob Beltran on guitar, and back on drums is J.R. Pereira.

They played a little longer set, and the mosh pit was in effect at the end. That boisterous group had Lamps Burning play one extra song in the set, so the Monkey Barrel faithful approved of the group’s efforts.

While Lamps Burning didn’t bring much in the way of merch, since this occasion was also a CD release party for area rockers Falling From Failure that band indeed had copies of the new CD called “Calculating Errors” at their table.

Here was where you could get the band's new CD, 2007's 'Unwelcome' EP, or FFF shirts with their logo. Been there, didn't get the shirt but I bought both the discs.

And I like the logo. They need a nice square sticker like this for my bumper.

Oh yeah, they played too. Actually, they were who I came to see, so I took quite a few pictures. I’ll start with one of the full band.

While I may not win any awards for composition, I did get all three band members in the shot. Up front on the left is Blake, to the right is Curt, and Chris is back on drums.

I also got shots of the individual band members, although Blake didn’t quite cooperate as you’ll see.

Next time look at the camera Blake! He's the singer and plays the guitar. Still trying to figure out why his jacket has that effect in my photo.

Why is it that bassists are always looking down? Curt was just churning out the low end rhythm.

I actually got two decent shots of Chris on the drums, which is a shock to me because drummers are hard to get pictures of.

I have to tell you that I took most of these shots relatively early in the set because by the end I was right up front on the ropes getting the occasional bump from the mosh pit. And my chiropractor will love me since I was headbanging for a good portion of FFF’s set. But it was fun.

Closing out the night was local favorite Hard$ell. I showed you Falling From Failure’s merch table, but they had nothing on Hard$ell’s.

I was a little surprised they didn't have any music to go with the shirts and other items. But the table sort of fits with the band name does it not?

There was one thing quite different about Hard$ell this time than the last time I saw them maybe a year or so ago. I took this shot just when they started playing from way back at the auxiliary bar so it’s not my greatest effort.

With this shot you get some idea of the number of folks there. It was a little less than I thought may be present, but this is Easter weekend so a lot of SU students probably went home.

This is a better shot of the Hard$ell crew. Moving to stage left worked a lot better.

There were only three guys playing last night, I remembered them as a four-piece band.

The last time I saw them they had a turntable player who also did backing vocals. He was there last night but only backed up on the last couple songs. I’m wondering if his voice couldn’t handle a full set anymore.

I'm not sure what the deal is but this guy only backed up a couple songs. The way he would scream lyrics always reminded me of some of the oldtime hardcore punk bands. By the way, as promised our friend from Lamps Burning was right up front checking out Hard$ell, he's behind the guy in the blue striped shirt.

I got a kick out of the last song, with the crowd participating by yelling out a phrase that’s eerily similar to the two words our local “pro-Maryland” bloggers place before the name of Joe Albero.

Sometime this coming week I’m going to put up some more pictures and a little more of a review on the monoblogue Myspace site. I actually took almost 90 pictures, and a lot of them were at the large format I like rather than the 640 x 480 format I use for this site. If the bands want some they can ask me at the address above.

There was one more picture I took just because I thought it was cool.

I've always found these things fascinating. It looks like something out an old science fiction movie.

I also should commend Jude for doing a great job with the sound. When he’s at a show (and he does a bunch), I can be sure that bad sound won’t be an issue. I still miss his Sunday evening radio show though.

Finally, if the creek don’t rise you can look forward to another pictorial like this sometime after next Saturday because that evening I’m going to head over to the Steer Inn to check out Skip Dixxon’s Spring Luau featuring 12 bands – Blake Haley, Crowded Outhouse, Johnny Suit and the Nice Ties, Woodstock, Aaron Howell Band, Melodic Groove, Trailerpark Romeo, Matthew King, Lower Class Citizens, Pirate Radio, Agent 99 (with a shout out to Casey!), and, of course, my good friends from Semiblind, who will be part of that bill as well. Should be a blast and it’ll be a little different sound – certainly not quite as heavy but still good music.

More female bloggers, and other stuff

When this actually arrives at the top of monoblogue, hopefully I’ll be compiling the photos for the next in my semi-regular series called “Weekend of local rock.” (Did you really think I sat at this computer during all of the waking hours I’m not at work? Please.) In the meantime I wanted to take this opportunity to point out another in what hopefully will be a continuing series and comment about recent changes here on monoblogue.

About 10 days back I wrote on two excellent posts put up by blogger John Hawkins, who hosts the Right Wing News blog. One of them was about blogging while female, and looked at five of the most prominent ladies in the blogosphere. On Tuesday John put out an additional list of five, a list that includes a young lady from close by my old neck of the woods (just up the pike in southeast Michigan), Emily Zanotti of American Princess.

It got me to thinking about female bloggers here on Delmarva. Probably my favorite local lady blogger is Karen from A Woman’s Point of View but sadly she’s not been posting lately. And of all the 40-plus members of the Maryland Bloggers Alliance, I think, give or take, only ten are women. I’m sure it’s not a majority since I’ve known most of my peers in that group for awhile. While I’m certainly not saying that everything should be equal down the middle genderwise in the blogging world, a few more female voices wouldn’t be a bad thing.

I also wanted to make a point about what I call my increased operational tempo. I’ve already noticed an uptick in readership since I went to a format of two posts a day and hopefully it’s something I can maintain over the summer because readership tends to decline as the weather gets warmer and people spend less time sitting at the computer perusing the blogosphere. It’s something I’ve found is not all that hard to maintain and will probably continue for the near-term future, at least as long as I have material I find interesting and worth commenting on. Likely I’ll shift slightly to having at least two posts Sunday through Thursday and one post each on Friday and Saturday – it matches up with my best readership days.

But I appreciate the increased readership and particularly the excellent reaction I’ve seen in my comments. Unlike some other websites, those who leave comments on monoblogue tend to do so in a civilized, mature fashion. Hopefully it will stay that way. I tend to allow the vast majority of comments through and thus far it’s worked out well. Keep it up!

A mini-Legislative Checkup from Delegate Eckardt

This came to my attention from Gail Bartkovich, who was nice enough to pass this along from Delegate Addie Eckardt’s staff. There were three bills that Legislative Aide Kathleen Styskal wrote about in this release, I’m going to concentrate on two of them.

Delegate Eckardt has introduced HB1215 which would form a task force to study all task forces, commissions, temporary or ad hoc committees and panels that functioned over the last nine years. The bill is intended to determine the purpose; findings and effectiveness; the individual and combined costs and subsequent actions that may be attributable to the work of the above mentioned groups. Between 1998 and 2007, there were 172 task forces created and this number includes only those task forces that had a reporting requirement – those that do not have a reporting mandate are not currently tracked. The bill had a hearing in the Health and Government Operations Committee on March 12.

In the time since this update was written, the bill was killed in that committee. Apparently the majority party doesn’t like the idea of actually seeing what tangible results have come from all of the task forces that have been put into place over the last decade. I’d have to ask what they’re afraid of.

While HB1215 had no shortage of irony attached to it, I would have liked to have someone look at just what was being accomplished by an endless parade of task forces that do cost the state money – in most cases participants are reimbursed for travel expenses and the like. In looking at some of the bills she’s sponsored, I’d have to say that Addie generally is a stickler for accountability. Unfortunately, the majority on the Health and Government Operations Committee apparently doesn’t care quite as much for that sort of thing. It’s only our tax dollars.

HB608, the “Light Bulb Bill”, of which Delegate Eckardt is a co-sponsor, has passed the House with amendments. The bill would have required that the Public Service Commission may not approve any program or service for the use and conservation of energy that assesses a surcharge on the customer’s gas or electric bill without prior written consent of the customer. The amendments changed the bill so that electric and gas companies must provide prior notification to affected customers on future energy efficiency and conservation charges but removed the customer consent aspect of the bill.

This bill passed the House of Delegates 138-1, with Delegate Impallaria being the lone vote against it. I tend to agree with Rick on this, because by removing the language I’m quoting below (taken from the First Reading version), the bill’s intent was completely and irrevocably gutted:

THE COMMISSION MAY NOT APPROVE ANY PROGRAM OR SERVICE FOR THE USE AND CONSERVATION OF ENERGY THAT REQUIRES OR ALLOWS A GAS COMPANY OR AN ELECTRIC COMPANY TO PROVIDE, DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, A PRODUCT OR A SERVICE TO A GAS CUSTOMER OR AN ELECTRIC CUSTOMER FOR WHICH THE CUSTOMER WOULD BE ASSESSED A SURCHARGE ON THE CUSTOMER’S GAS BILL OR ELECTRIC BILL WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE CUSTOMER.

HB608 was a response to Allegheny Power’s decision earlier this year to send compact fluorescent light bulbs to all of its customers while adding a 96 cent per month surcharge to their 2008 electric bills to recoup the cost. As amended, the utilities would simply have to give a notice of future efforts. I get inserts in my electric bill each month and tend to read through them in a cursory manner, thus I feel pretty safe in saying that any notice like this will probably find file 13 in a hurry when it arrives in most households.

The original idea was quite sound and I think utilities may have found that an opt-in installment plan worked pretty well; unfortunately, someone on the Economic Matters Committee decided that allowing consumers a choice in the matter would give them way too much say in things and added this amendment which pulled the teeth out of the measure. Can’t have people determining for themselves whether they want to receive and pay extra for bulbs that are mostly made in China and possibly create a hazmat situation if they’re broken, can they?

On Sunday I’m going to have another article about a bill in the General Assembly that somehow escaped my notice and was brought to my attention by another e-mailer. That’s going to be a fun one to dissect too.

It’s too late for fiscal sanity!

Here they go, locking the barn door after the horse has departed:

House Republicans (this week) offered a series of budget amendments that would further reduce state spending, allow for a repeal of the computer service tax, and cushion the state against further economic downturn and additional revenue write-downs.

“Over the last year, the House Republican Caucus has brought forth three individual budget plans that would have preserved state services and controlled spending without increasing taxes”, said Minority Leader Anthony J. O’Donnell. “Our pleas and the pleas from the taxpayers for fiscal restraint have all fallen on deaf ears. Each plan we have presented has been soundly dismissed with little consideration. Now, on the tails of the largest tax increase in Maryland’s history, in the face of a grim economic forecast with $333 million in revenue write-downs, we offer yet another plan. We are hopeful that finally, our colleagues across the aisle will agree that it is time to restore some fiscal sanity to the State of Maryland.”

Part of the Republican Plan included an amendment from the Minority Leader that would reduce the overall budget growth from the Governor’s original proposal of 6% growth ($1.8 billion) to a growth of 2.5% ($733 million). O’Donnell’s amendment would allow for a repeal of the Computer Services Tax without backfilling with new taxes. It also created a fund balance to cushion the state against future revenue write-downs.

“Trimming a few hundred million off the budget is a good first step, but it does not go far enough to meaningfully address Maryland’s fiscal health”, said Delegate Gail Bates, the ranking Republican member of the House Appropriations Committee. “Spending has not been restrained and the Administration and the General Assembly continue to create new programs. Even with the reductions taken by the House Appropriations Committee, the budget grows by $1.3 billion, a 4.3% increase over last year”.

“Truth in budgeting does not exist in Maryland”, said Minority Whip Christopher Shank. “There are slush funds masked as hundreds of vacant but funded positions and there is no will in the majority party to truly eliminate them. Enough is enough. The chronic overspending must end. It is not sustainable and will have catastrophic effects on the citizens of Maryland. With all indications pointing to another revenue write down in September, if we do not get a tight grip on spending the Democrats will be responsible for additional taxes, actual cuts in services people are receiving and actual layoffs of the State’s workforce.”

Unfortunately, unless they have changed the budget assumptions they made in their previous effort, it still assumes the need for each and every one of Martin O’Malley’s tax increases enacted in January to balance the budget.

There is a problem in the General Assembly, and it’s one which needs to be addressed in upcoming sessions. If you read many of the bills that are passed, you’ll find that they mandate certain amounts of money be allocated to whatever cause they were intended for and in theory the hands of Governor O’Malley are tied insofar as creating a budget. If the law says he has to spend $15 million someplace, I suspect he’s going to do that. And then you have provisions which prohibit the General Fund from raiding various funds after they reach a certain point as well.

What needs to happen is the elimination of these mandated amounts, providing more flexibilty in budgeting for the expected revenue. Right now the revenues dictate a smaller budget so that’s what should happen. If we’re flush with cash, another proposal that needs to be passed is one to give the surplus back to the taxpayers after making sure the rainy-day fund is at the minimum required for our bond rating (but no more.)

The second portion of this sea change in budgetary attitude needs to be an economic stimulus plan for Maryland. Since it’s once again been proven that increasing taxes brings decreasing revenues but still manages to do damage to the budgets of working Marylanders, my idea for economic stimulus is to do the following:

It goes without saying the tech tax is a goner.
Repeal the 1% sales tax for the entire state and make it a 3.5% decrease for the nine counties of the Eastern Shore, so our sales tax rate is only 2.5 percent. If it brings more jobs to the Shore, then we can go for the whole enchilada later and eliminate the sales tax entirely over here, placing us on a level playing field with Delaware.
Work with business leaders to find whichever state has the most business-friendly tax structure and copy it. If we have a business-friendly tax structure combined with the twin benefits of much higher-than-normal average income and an above-average educational system, businesses would certainly want to share in our wealth and create even more good jobs in our state – jobs where taxpayers aren’t paying the wages.
Speaking of wages, drop the “living wage” bullshit and let the market dictate what workers are paid.
Before it even has a chance to pass, let’s also do away with this job-killing idea of “Global Warming Solutions.”

It’s a nice little five-point plan that I think will do a whole heck of a lot more for the state than going along to get along. I refuse to accept the premise that we needed any of those tax increases that Governor O’Malley managed to sledgehammer through during his Special Session last fall, nor should we need this particular proposal for slots that’s on the ballot this fall. I’m not totally against slots in Maryland but since there’s no real rules defined yet I don’t feel I can support a ballot initiative that is as open to interpretation as this one is. It was the General Assembly’s job to make the laws and they punted.

Unfortunately, the other thing that seems to have been booted from Annapolis is concern for the common taxpayer, at least from the majority party.

More on HB288

I wish I knew what the reaction to my written testimony of yesterday was (probably a hearty laugh from Democrats who had no plans to change their mind and vote for this common-sense bill), but I did get more on the fight from the Maryland Republican Party and specifically lead bill sponsor Delegate Ron George:

House Republicans today called for passage of the bipartisan Proof of Legal Presence Act of 2008. The bill, HB 288 is being heard in the House Judiciary Committee this afternoon.

“Maryland is the only state in the union that has not moved forward to require proof of legal presence before it issues a driver’s license,” said Delegate Ron George, the lead sponsor on the bill. “Currently, the MVA processes 2,000 out-of-country applicants each week – that is an increase from 1,054 per month only a year ago,” said Delegate George. “That is a 660% increase in only one year. At that rate of increase, next year that number will jump to 8,000 licenses per week or 32,000 per month.”

As drafted, HB288 prohibits the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) from issuing an identification card, driver’s license, etc. to an individual born on or after December 1, 1964 who cannot provide acceptable documentation certifying citizenship or lawful presence in the United States. Starting December 1, 2017, the prohibition applies to anyone, regardless of age. The bill also allows the MVA to issue such a license or permit to an individual who is lawfully present but who is not a citizen provided that the license, identification card, or permit is effective only for as long as the individual is authorized to remain in the United States under federal law.

“The flaws in our driver’s licensing system make Maryland a magnet for anyone coming to this country illegally and present a huge risk to our citizens,” said Delegate George. “First and foremost it is a security threat, particularly given Maryland’s close proximity to Washington D.C.”

These are more compelling reasons to favor this bill, but I do question whether the rate of increase Delegate George cites would continue and mushroom to 8,000 per week in one year’s time. On the other hand, if Maryland continues to cement a reputation as the promised land for illegals trying to legitimize themselves, that flood of license applicants may well become a reality to the detriment of our state.

While that may not bother the Chamber of Commerce types who want a lot of cheap labor to do their menial tasks, they need to be careful what they wish for as the rest of us struggle with the crime and increased tax burden that places on us all as this influx needs to have their children go to our schools, get health care in the emergency room, crowd into rental housing, and most importantly can take that driver’s license they acquired to the Board of Elections and tell the nice people there that, si, they are eligible to vote in our fair state because they have this driver’s license that says so. The Board of Elections can’t question that and has to take an applicant at their word that they are a citizen who’s eligible to vote. What’s perjury when you’re already here unlawfully?

All we’re asking for is a simple measure that only discriminates against those who should not be here in the first place. Think it will pass?

Year 6 begins today

There were a lot of protests today as our nation began the sixth year of hostilities in Iraq, while President Bush made his case for staying on course.

The way I look at it is that we’re there and we’re in it, we may as well win it. And progress seems to have been made, slowly but surely. We may find 2008 is the year we reduce our presence in Iraq because the foe we’re fighting there is, to be quite honest, getting tired of doing so. It may become a battle of attrition because there’s a lot of people here who are tired of the fight too and much will hinge on who wins the November election.

While “what if” is a parlor game, let’s imagine for a few moments that the invasion of five years ago didn’t happen. What might the world be like?

Obviously the chances are good that Saddam Hussein would still be ruling Iraq with an iron fist, perhaps with weapons of mass destruction. And even if he didn’t have them, surely the speculation would still be rampant and that would provide Iran a little more cover to ramp up their nuclear program since those two nations had a horrific war that ended just two decades ago.

Meanwhile, the protestors who are marching in the streets now against the war in Iraq would still be out in force each October 7th protesting our invasion of Afghanistan, which has quietly gone on while events in Iraq unfolded over the last five years. It may not have taken as many troops as the Iraqi theater has but there would still be bloodshed and we would still be an occupying force in an “innocent” nation. The country name on the signs would change but Code Pink would still be out there. They’d have to drop the “war for oil” claim but that’s about the only change.

Here’s one part I’m not sure about though. Given the fact that people are still shooting at us over there, would our not being in Iraq have saved the men and women of the opposition? I’m sure to most jihad was jihad and they were going to fight the infidels wherever they were – they may have died on the outskirts of Kabul rather than on some dusty Iraqi plain. But I think that fewer would have died, which meant more of them would be around to wreak havoc in other places around the globe.

There’s also many who argue regarding Iraq that the Sunnis and Shias have been fighting regularly for over 1300 years, so what makes us think that we can bring that to an end? What they tend to forget is that Christianity and Islam have been fighting for almost that long themselves, overtly during the Crusades and covertly on many other occasions before and since. We’re in an era where Islamists have adopted the successful guerrila tactics used by forces such as the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War, and similarly are winning the propaganda battle by dividing America along the lines of those who are anti-war, regardless of the costs of withdrawal, fighting a struggle for hearts and minds against those who have some idea of what the enemy may do to our nation and our freedoms if they eventually wore us down and won.

Obviously it wasn’t our foray into Iraq or Afghanistan that brought us the attacks of 9/11 because that predated our missions there. They chose their time and method of attack against us (which was just a continuation of a number of incidents dating back over 20 years beforehand), and five years ago we did the same to them.

All in all, whether we’d invaded Iraq in 2003 or not the hatred some in the Middle East feel for us would be the same because the radicals of the Islamic world dislike our support of Israel. And while diplomacy sounds nice, the trick is to find those leaders who are trustworthy enough not to stab us in the back the moment we turn around. They are in short supply to be sure, so the interim solution is to beat down the enemy militarily. And let’s face it, we’ve been relatively subdued over there as an occupier because on 9/12 there wouldn’t have been a whole lot of outcry from Americans had we just launched a few nukes and turned the entire Middle East into a sea of uninhabitable glass. What worries me is that our foes may not show such restraint if left unchecked.

Testimony in favor of House Bill 288

Sometime this afternoon, the Judiciary Committee of the House of Delegates should get a copy of or hear this testimony read:

House Bill 288

Michael Swartz, Salisbury

I write in SUPPORT of House Bill 288, for the following reasons:

It is estimated that anywhere between 12 million and 20 million are in this country illegally, whether by crossing one of our borders or overstaying the visas they obtained through legal means. But by obtaining a driver’s license those here illegally acquire a de facto source of “proof” they are supposed to be here. Because of this common usage of a driver’s license as identification, the standard for obtaining a license or identification card should be increased to discourage these lawbreakers from taking advantage of the system.

Having proof of citizenship to obtain a driver’s license is also important in maintaining our voter registration system. According to the Maryland State Board of Elections, the identification required to register for voting can be EITHER a Maryland driver’s license, MVA ID card number or the last four digits of an applicant’s Social Security number. While the voter registration application demands the applicant affirm their citizenship under penalty of perjury, we’re talking about a person who’s already broken the law in order to be here in the first place! Otherwise, the Board of Elections cannot ask for proof of citizenship so this has to be done beforehand by the Maryland MVA, as this bill would mandate.

While states like Arizona and Oklahoma have become more restrictive toward those who are in this country illegally, Maryland has become more of a magnet for the undocumented. By adding this small barrier, we can discourage a group that is a net loser to the state as far as taxes collected vs. benefits received from staying here. This is particularly important in a time when Maryland already faces a revenue shortfall due to a struggling economy and needs to make sure those programs targeted to the economically disadvantaged assist only those who are legitimately eligible.

There is one other item I would like to bring up. While it’s not necessarily germane to the passage or failure of House Bill 288, I would like to question Delegate Vallario, the Chair of the Judiciary Committee, regarding the timing of this hearing so late in the session when hundreds of bills introduced afterward received their hearings much sooner. By leaving so little time for the Committee to take up this bill and get it through the legislative process, it seems to me the deck is being stacked against a measure that I consider to be simple, common-sense legislation with bipartisan support that should have become law much sooner. I hope the Committee proves my suspicions wrong and quickly starts House Bill 288 through the process and onto Governor O’Malley’s desk for approval.

Lastly, I appreciate having the opportunity to share my thoughts on this important measure this afternoon.

Was I a little tough on Delegate Vallario? I don’t think so, since by stalling this bill they’ve pretty much placed it in a position that, even should it manage to pass, it wouldn’t reach Governor O’Malley’s desk before the opportunity to override his veto expires for the session. We already know Vallario is a friend of illegal immigrants and their enablers at CASA de Maryland, so working to get him out of the catbird seat on that committee as part of our 2010 efforts is paramount if we want to address these problems in a proper manner.

At least I had my say. It’s actually pretty easy so I may have to do this more often!

Crossposted on Red Maryland this evening.

Radio days volume 12

Subtitled, “The Rant”.

I hope you who listened had as much fun as I did participating. A lot of this I thought of last night, in fact I believe the last thing I did before I headed to bed was write down the question I opened with. For those of you who didn’t listen, this is the question I asked:

Why do we implicitly trust the government with our money?

As a society we seem to be ecstatic when we get a large tax refund, when in truth all that meant was that we lent the federal and/or state government all that money interest-free. I managed to accomplish this dubious feat this year. I’m sure I won’t do that next year to the same extent because somehow I think we’re going to be paying for that $600 or $1200 stimulus check most of us are getting. Like I noted during the conservation, how much of this money do you think will be going simply to bail out the creditors of those who get the “extra” money? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just suspend backup withholding like I suggested? It would have saved millions simply in writing and sending out checks. Of course, the federal government can’t do without, just like those in Congress who want to take the nickel a gallon or so the oil company makes as profit because gas prices are too high without thinking one second about dropping the gasoline tax that’s closing in on 50 cents a gallon, even temporarily.

And then we have our illustrious state of Maryland which seems to be hellbent on driving out every viable business that once called it home, with the next blow to be the computer services sales tax. Even in the bid to repeal the tax before it’s enacted those in the General Assembly they proposed not to do without the money but instead jack up income taxes on those they deem wealthy enough to spare the cash. Me, I call them the producers and entrepreneurs who actually make the state and country work by creating jobs. I don’t think of them as the state’s automatic teller machine.

You would think that out of a $30 billion or so budget they could cut 2% from the state side, by my math that’s the $300 million shortfall. People don’t realize about half of the state budget comes courtesy of the federal government. Another point I made was about this money we send to those inside the Beltway only to see that cash returned to the state – it seems to me the sole purpose of that exercise is to keep some bureaucrat in a job. The same goes for the state of Maryland paying the counties. Something about that escapes me, and I think I’m a pretty logical guy most of the time.

Anyway, if you didn’t have a chance to listen to Bill and I, I e-mailed him afterward just to see if there was an .mp3 file available. Of all the times I’ve been on, I think this was the best. Maybe it was indeed a grand slam, although when I got back to work Keith thought it was more like just a solid double. I’ll still take the runs batted in though.

Crossposted under a different title on Red Maryland.