Odds and ends number 38

I have three Maryland-related items which I thought deserved comment and space on this website, so here goes.

I’ll begin with a new political action committee seeking conservative money, with an interesting appeal:

Last year’s historic election in this country showed overwhelming support for conservative fiscal policies and practices. Everywhere conservatives pulled ahead as voters showed their support and confidence.  But the … State of Maryland remains almost the last outpost where liberal unfairness reigns at the hands of a politically ambitious Governor who seems immune to criticism and immune to prosperity.

(snip)

Before you invest time and money defending political candidates for State or Federal offices in Maryland CONSERVATIVE VICTORY PAC wants to ask you WHY?  If you live in Maryland, work in Maryland, rear children in Maryland, and own a Maryland business or property and you really don’t want to relocate, CONSERVATIVE VICTORY PAC is a clarion Call to action for you.

CONSERVATIVE VICTORY PAC President, Chuck Floyd, “I am a Maryland business owner and home owner rearing my children here.  Every election year politicians come to us asking for support.  In return these politicians tell us they can guarantee security in our jobs, our businesses, and even in all of our basic human needs. Then the Aha-moment strikes: we pay more to the politicians, more to the government that they operate and yet every year we are poorer and less secure in all of these things they have promised to do for us. Look around; who is getting richer and living it up?  The politicians, their families, and friends are living it up.  Something is wrong with this picture.”

Join the fight of a lifetime to keep what you hold dear and hard earned: Our Maryland values and our Maryland way of life.  Join us to raise public awareness of the plight of Maryland locked in the stranglehold of machine politics.  Join us to support high-caliber Conservative challengers to the incumbent monopoly in Annapolis and in Washington, DC.  Join us to win and overturn this Goliath machine of destruction.

Join CONSERVATIVE VICTORY PAC:  Volunteer advocate, participate, and contribute.  Take back the life that you have earned and the life that all Marylanders are proud of. (Emphasis in original.)

I find it pretty odd that conservatives turn a class envy argument on its head with an appeal like this. But I have a question for Mr. Floyd: if this is a federal PAC (as the header of the release stated) how can they support state candidates? Maybe that’s a question someone more versed in campaign finance can answer for me, since I’m more worried about how the GOP distributes its money.

And it will be interesting which candidates they support as opposed to another PAC of similar origins, the Constitutional Conservatives for Maryland PAC.

But I have a little bit of constructive criticism about the release, especially from a group with a number of Maryland conservative heavy hitters – nowhere did I see a link to their site! I had to hunt it down manually.

The same criticism can be leveled at the campaign for U.S. Senate candidate Dan Bongino.

On Tuesday I received a release from his campaign that claimed, “Dan Bongino Presents Clearest, Most Comprehensive Economic Plan at U.S. Senate Panel Monday Night.” This is all well and good, but all I got in the presser were platitudes like this:

“The citizens of Maryland are being ignored by an unresponsive one-party monopoly in Maryland.  It’s time to get our economy back on track and we can’t do that by constantly increasing taxes, fees and tolls. The path to recovery lies with the entrepreneurship of our national workforce.”

(snip)

As an entrepreneur, (Bongino) understands that it will be small businesses and consumer confidence that will reinvigorate the economy; not a tax and spend mentality from big government.

Obviously I wasn’t at this gathering, and perhaps there will be some video on the Bongino campaign website so he can let us all in on the secret. But I wanted a little substance to go with the sizzle, and simply based on this release I’m quite disappointed. Perhaps it was a rehash of his existing economic plan, which seems sound enough on the surface.

This seems like sort of a rookie mistake to me, so hopefully Bongino won’t step into the same trap next time. Luckily, he has plenty of time to get his campaign firing on all cylinders.

Speaking of “a tax and spend mentality,” this leads me into my final item. Maryland Business for Responsive Government sent this out yesterday:

Maryland Business for Responsive Government released the following statement on the heels of “Fiscal Survey of the States,” released today by the National Governor’s Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers.

According to the report, Maryland has the highest increase in general fund spending between fiscal years 2011 and 2012 as compared to surrounding states Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. Maryland also has the nation’s seventh highest increase in the nation during the same period. (Editor’s note: see Page 7 of the report.)

Overall, state 2012 enacted budgets will rise 2.9%, while Maryland’s will rise 11.4%.

“These numbers clearly show that Maryland has a spending problem. Maryland’s political leadership continues to feed the beast with hard earned taxpayer dollars through tax and fee increases instead of looking for cost savings in the budget,” said MBRG President Kimberly M. Burns.

“Without an honest, bipartisan assessment of state spending, the budget will only continue to grow out of control and politicians will demand more and more revenue on a continued march towards big government.”

In my opinion, we have had several honest assessments of state spending that come from the Republicans in the Maryland General Assembly, who have created their own shadow budget over the last few years – a budget that generally is much closer to balance without hefty tax and fee increases. But all of it goes for naught because the Maryland budget is a unique, executive-driven document which the General Assembly can only cut – obviously the majority party (and far too many Republicans over the years) don’t have the stomach to make reductions, though. So this admonition is equally for them.

After all, no party is above criticism – even if they do think their crap doesn’t stink as the majority party in Maryland seems to. So now you have an idea of several conservative alternatives finding their way in our political landscape, and it’s up to you to decide if they deserve support.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.