The nice thing about having a tourist mecca nearby is the opportunity to get a political message out. While the Worcester County Republicans already have a billboard in place along the most busy north-south highway on Delmarva (U.S. 13) they’re also getting a lot of thumbs-up from people on the Boardwalk in Ocean City.
And Dan Bongino volunteers seem to be leading the charge!
I have a couple of observations on these two photos.
First of all, I wish Don Stifler, who forwarded these pictures to me, had added a helpful guide so I know who these women are. I presume they’re among the best and brightest that Worcester County Republicans have to offer, but I can’t give credit where credit is due because, quite honestly, I’m not good with faces and names. That’s why I write.
Secondly, I have to ask where the guys are? Come on, this IS the Boardwalk and I think there’s plenty to look at. Maybe that’s what they are doing.
But in the note which accompanied these pictures I’m told that they received accolades or thumbs up from at least one person hailing from all 23 of Maryland’s counties – along with Baltimore City, of course – and even one visitor from Key West, Florida.
Yet there is a wider point or two to be made among all these pictures. While I didn’t see any visitors at the table, it appears that the GOP is drawing interest from Republicans and thoughtful unaffiliated voters or members of other parties around the state who are presumably happy to see representation along the Boardwalk. Honestly, I don’t know if they had a similar location in 2010 or 2008 but what counts is that the two statewide campaigns as well as Andy Harris are flying their flag, so to speak, in this location. (I also don’t know if the Democrats are doing the same thing on the Boardwalk, if they are chances are it’s more of a low-key presence based on another Worcester County event.)
Obviously the conventional wisdom is that Maryland is such a dark blue state that being a Republican consigns you to a lifetime of electoral misery. But in order to change that, someone has to show we have not been buried upside down and will return before the ten-year statute of limitations decreed by Mike Miller. Wouldn’t it be sweet to win a couple statewide races and remind him of those words?
That’s what we’re working for. It may take some time, but as Dan Bongino says, “we cede no ground.” I don’t either.
With the recent blowup of the Change Maryland study I’ve written about a fewtimes over the last couple weeks, it’s clear that Governor Martin O’Malley has been installed into the state’s political conversation to such a degree that we’re forgetting two key facts: one, he’s a lame-duck Governor, and two: he’s not anywhere on the 2012 ballot. Those who bemoan the fact that Democrats are running against George W. Bush two elections on (because President Bush hasn’t run for anything, even dogcatcher, since 2004) may want to consider the fact that Martin O’Malley, while representative of the typical liberal tax-and-spend philosophy, isn’t the opponent in any of these 2012 state races and each of these contests has its own dynamic.
A good example of this is Dan Bongino’s campaign, which has attempted to tie incumbent Senator Ben Cardin and O’Malley together by portraying the Senator as a mute observer of the Maryland political scene as well as the Obama re-election campaign, which IS on the ballot. (By the way, Bongino has some choice words as well about the Obama tactic of insinuating Mitt Romney is a felon.)
But there is a political reality at work when it comes to placing O’Malley as a surrogate on the 2012 ballot. The only way to really know whether O’Malley’s missteps will hurt the Democratic cause this fall is to see polling data on his approval rating, which earlier this year was pegged at 55% in a Washington Post poll and 53% in the Maryland Poll by Gonzales Research. (A useful item in the Maryland Poll is their historic polling, which showed O’Malley’s approval dipped into the upper 30’s in early 2008 after the passage of multiple tax increases the previous fall. But obviously all was forgiven by re-election time in 2010.) If O’Malley’s policies remain popular, such a negative approach toward him may backfire with voters who aren’t paying a tremendous amount of attention yet and only read the spin on his frequent Sunday morning guest appearances.
We know that MOM has been raked over the coals but good from the Change Maryland study as well as bad jobs reports and the ineptitude of the end of the regular General Assembly session this spring. We can add the tax increases passed in the first Special Session and the poor handling of proposed gambling expansion via another on-again, off-again Special Session which may occur to the chalk marks on O’Malley’s negative ledger.
Unfortunately, at this point it’s difficult to tell just how bad of a summer the Governor has had because there aren’t any major polls out there which peg O’Malley’s approval, and I’m not privy to any internal campaign polling to clarify this approach. Obviously if Governor O’Malley is in the same range as he was in early 2008, tying him into other Democratic candidates may work; otherwise, it’s simply repeating the approach of solidifying a base that should be pretty well sewn up by now. I believe that’s the analysis our side gives when we see Democrats blaming George W. Bush for the nation’s ills even though the former President has been quietly living civilian life since January of 2009, so it should probably apply to Martin O’Malley until we see more conclusive proof that the negatives are there to use as an anchor to other candidates.
Notwithstanding the handful of county races or whatever issues survive the all-but-certain judicial process to be placed on a statewide ballot, there are ten key races in Maryland and eight of them feature Democratic incumbents. (That’s eight members of Congress including the six Democrats, the U.S. Senate seat, and Presidential race.) We all know that these incumbent Democrats have run away from their records for the most part because, except in certain limited quarters, who would want to be associated with such a record of failure as that wrought by the man at the top of the ticket? Their only tactic seems to be blaming Bush and lying about how bad things were under his watch – I’d take 5% unemployment right now, how about you?
So I’d really be interested to see just how much this month has affected Martin O’Malley’s approval rating before going all-in on including him with the remaining races to be fought. Having said that, though, because Change Maryland is an organization concerned with the state of the state, I think MOM is fair game for them and I’d be disappointed if they didn’t question his tax-and spend record and its effects on the state’s economy.
If they’ve driven his negatives up to 2008 levels, using it in campaign 2012 may not be a bad play – but let’s see some evidence of that first.
One could almost call this a feature I used to do once upon a time that I allocated from an old Eastern Shore blog called Duvafiles. The late Bill Duvall used to do “Sunday Evening Reading,” and for the most part this post will have quite a bit of that element in it. But my e-mail box is brimming full of interesting items that I think at least deserve a mention, if not a couple paragraphs.
Saying it’s costing these funds $1.5 billion a year, the folks at the Center for Immigration Studies decry the shortfall they claim is being created in entitlement trust funds by foreign workers exempt from certain taxes. Obviously the Ocean City tourist economy is one fueled by those who take advantage of student visas to come to the United States and work for the summer. But employers also save by not having to pay the 8.45% payroll tax on these workers, pocketing the difference.
Next is a Friday the 13th horror story from the Heritage Foundation, which revealed that “welfare as we know it” isn’t going to be dead after all. While the actual language of the directive itself doesn’t seem so bad, there is one sentence which should give us pause:
As described below, however, HHS will only consider approving waivers relating to the work participation requirements that make changes intended to lead to more effective means of meeting the work goals of TANF.
And, while the states can posit any approach they wish, authority on implementation is left up to the HHS Secretary, not Congress:
The Secretary will not approve a waiver for an initiative that appears substantially likely to reduce access to assistance or employment for needy families.
In other words, let’s place more people on the dole!
You might also notice that this is an internal HHS directive because, unlike the 1996 law President Clinton reluctantly signed in the heat of a re-election campaign, Congress didn’t approve these new regulations. Perhaps because Friday afternoon document dumps of politically unpopular news and directives have become de rigueur these days, maybe Thursday is the new Friday around the Obama administration.
Executive abuse of regulatory authority isn’t just for the federal government, though. Senate Minority Leader E.J. Pipkin called out Governor O’Malley for making his own changes, stating, “The Governor, using the MDE regulatory authority as a front, has decided to circumvent legislation passed by the General Assembly and signed into law by his own hand.”
The changes have to do with legislation passed in 2009 to regulate septic systems, which was originally intended only for certain areas lying in the Coastal Bay and critical areas around waterways. But recent Maryland Department of the Environment regulatory changes expand the regulations statewide, according to Pipkin.
“Once again the Governor displays a breathtaking arrogance to change the law. He has an environmental agenda. And he is not about to let a mere 188 elected lawmakers get in his way,” Pipkin said.
It’s interesting to see as well that Pipkin has revamped his website. Perhaps it’s being primed for a statewide run?
In the national run, while Barack Obama has been whining about being outraised and outspent by Mitt Romney, the Republican is running a contest to meet him and his vice-presidential candidate (for a $3 donation, of course.)
But while Obama’s whining about a lack of funding, as blogger Bob McCarty notes the president’s seen over 400 banks fail under his watch, including the recent closure of the Bank of the Eastern Shore in Cambridge. Obviously most of these weren’t too big to fail, although most of the failed thrifts were acquired by other institutions.
And of course, there’s the people who claim they saw all this coming. Sometime this fall a documentary film will come out detailing the transgressions performed by the federal government in creating our hard economic times. The film will be called “The Bubble” and this is the trailer.
Now I don’t go in for grand conspiracy theories, but as long as the players stick to the basic issues and – more importantly – explain a little bit about the ideas they think can reverse the trend, they may have a winner on their hands just in time for the election. Not saying it will be a help to Mitt Romney or necessarily hurt Barack Obama, but it could make people think.
The film is based on the book Meltdown by Dr. Tom Woods, who contends that:
Americans have been fed a cartoon version of what has happened to the economy over the past several years. They believe the government was merely an innocent bystander, while the real culprits, egged on by so-called deregulation, are to be found in the private sector.
Guess what? He’s right. And his film will argue we may be blowing up yet another one, which will likely implode in 2013 or 2014.
The bubble on this edition of odds and ends bursts now, though. Yes, my e-mail inbox is nice and cleaned out once again.
As many of you know, I’m a big fan of our local Delmarva Shorebirds minor league baseball team. On their most recent homestand their PlayBall magazine has a photospread of the four Maryland natives who have most recently been on the Shorebirds’ roster: outfielders Glynn Davis and Austin Knight, and infielders Tommy Winegardner and Joe Velleggia.
Due to various roster moves, though, only Davis has spent the entire 2012 campaign with the Shorebirds and as it turns out there’s only been a period of a few days where all were on the roster simultaneously – and that was only because Knight is currently on the disabled list. As I write this, Davis is the only active Shorebird of the four, with Knight still on the DL. Winegardner was sent down to Aberdeen today; ironically it appears he’s replacing Velleggia on the IronBirds roster as Joe decided to voluntarily retire from pro baseball today. Hopefully this is not a PlayBall cover jinx at work.
But this tidbit got me curious about how many Maryland natives had actually played for the Shorebirds over the years. After about an hour on the baseball-reference.com website it appears the answer is 20:
Derek Brown (1997-98)
Joey Hammond (1998-99)
Corey Hoch (1998-99)
Billy Whitecotton (2000)
Mark Gibbs (2002)
Ryan Childs (2004)
Brandon Erbe (2006)
Chorye Spoone (2006)
Paul Winterling (2006-07)
Andy Schindling (2008-09)
Brian Valichka (2008)
Brian Conley (2009-11)
Patrick Kantakevich (2009-10)
Steve Bumbry (2010-11)
Jason Stifler (2010)
David Walters (2010-11)
Glynn Davis (2012)
Austin Knight (2012)
Joe Velleggia (2012)
Tommy Winegardner (2012)
Yet while the four this year have not been on the roster at exactly the same time, there was about a ten-day period in July, 2010 where all five Marylanders who played for the Shorebirds that season were all on the roster simultaneously.
It’s interesting to note that the Orioles seem to be placing more of an emphasis on giving homegrown talent the opportunity to play in the organization. The last season no Maryland native played here was 2005, and over the last four we have had no less than three take the field with the team at some point. By and large these players haven’t been high draft picks (exceptions were Erbe and Spoone, who were drafted in the 3rd and 8th rounds, respectively) – in fact, several over the last few seasons have been non-drafted free agents signed off the street by the O’s, including Davis, Winegardner, and David Walters and Jason Stifler from 2011.
While the odds of them making the Orioles’ roster someday are relatively long, and, as the story states, the last Maryland-born player to play for the Orioles was Cal Ripken, Jr. – that is, until Steve Johnson makes his delayed major league debut – it’s neat to see these guys make their bid for getting to the Show with their hometown team. It really doesn’t happen that often to begin with, and Maryland isn’t known as a baseball hotbed like Florida, Texas, and California are. There, it’s less of a big deal to see a hometown or regional guy make the team but in Baltimore that would be special.
Since the beginning of July, Governor Martin O’Malley has made nationwide news in a number of ways, but not necessarily with the headlines he may have preferred.
First we had the Change Maryland tax exodus report that I’ve talked aboutat some length – and sohaveanumberofothers. (Yes, there are eight different links in that sentence.) That begat other statements like this one from GOP U.S. Senate candidate Dan Bongino, who also made a swipe at opponent Ben Cardin – who is not my friend, by the way:
Sensing the futility of having to defend our worsening national and local economy, Senator Cardin, absent a few well-scripted photo ops, has been missing in action as a public face for the current administration. Happily filling in is our Governor, who prefers television appearances to actual governing. Never more than a breath away from a mimed sound bite, fed to him by the current administration, he continues to intentionally mislead the American people and Marylanders regarding the perilous state of the U.S. and Maryland economies, perpetually stating that both are “moving forward”.
Governor O’Malley, take off your blinders and put aside your Presidential aspirations. The U.S. economy is in the midst of the worst recovery in modern times and our great state has become an economic joke. We currently rank 42nd out of 50 in a recent report on state’s business environments, followed by another report showing a mass exodus of successful Marylanders avoiding our punishing tax load. (Emphasis in original.)
Even better was this from radio talker Mark Levin, who’s not known for mincing words (h/t to Jackie Wellfonder):
And the guy who started this whole news cycle, Change Maryland head Larry Hogan, himself on Wednesday dismissed O’Malley’s response as “a childish lashing out” on WBAL radio.
So what did O’Malley do yesterday? Double down on stupid. (Again, thanks to Jackie for this one.) This is from his Facebook page:
A new report conducted by the Hilltop Institute at the University of Maryland, finds that implementation of the Affordable Care Act will benefit the state’s budget by more than $600 million through 2020, generate more than $3 billion in annual economic activity, and create more than 26,000 jobs. This is more great news for Maryland’s families.
Naturally I had to respond:
If the group being cited has as part of its stated mission “Developing, implementing, and evaluating new delivery and financing models for publicly funded health care systems, including preventive health, behavioral health, oral health, and long-term services and supports” do you honestly think they would have some other conclusion?
The Left loves to jump on research when its funded by a particular industry and seems to conform with their word view, so how is this different?
But the most humorous thing I find about the study is that they project there will STILL be uninsured Marylanders. I thought the idea was to insure everyone? (Never mind the rose-colored glasses on economic impact, unemployment, etc. the report assumes, nor should we mention the $300 million a year state employers will have to pony up.)
(snip)
And why should O’Malley care? The impact will mainly fall on his successor; meanwhile he’ll be warming a U.S. Senate seat in preparation for his sure to be ill-fated Presidential run.
By the way, a summary of the report projections can be found at the Hilltop Institute site. I sort of suspect they know which side of the slice their bread is buttered on.
And here’s the rub: Does the governor honestly think that taking all these millions out of the private sector and redistributing it to the mobs who will be expecting their “free health care” for every sniffle, toothache, or paper cut will make money for the state? It didn’t work in Tennessee or Hawaii, and the jury is still out on Massachusetts.
Out here in the real world, we know the score. And while Martin O’Malley is trying his best to become a leading contender for the 2016 Democratic nomination by pandering to the causes liberals hold dearest, such as green energy and gay marriage, he’s forgetting that he’s also building a record of budget-busting failure to be used against him by the GOP. Quite honestly, stupid statements and “childish lashing out” are unbecoming of any governor, let alone who who fancies himself a prime-time candidate for the Oval Office.
I understand tonight is Friday the 13th, but I’m not going to bust out a hockey mask and go all Jason on you. (That is the correct pop culture reference, isn’t it? I’m no slasher film buff.)
Instead, I’m going to toss out some stuff you may not have seen, and, as I alluded to last week, feature my three most watched music videos on my YouTube channel. They’re some of the many I’ve recorded and uploaded since 2009.
But first I wanted to feature a good new band, with a song that put them on the map with me. This is Red Angel.
Another band I heard first through the Local Produce show was bigtimeshipwreck. I chose this song because to me it represents the hard work that goes into making a live show so special. Maybe they weren’t looking for it to be seen but I saw it anyway.
I’m not a huge fan of covers, but sometimes there’s one which catches my ear. So it was with this version of ‘Addicted’ by local favorites Vivid Season.
Another, less conventional cover was done by a band which is no longer among us, as Order 6D-6 apparently went their separate ways. I think I have this song as one of my videos as well, but this version of ‘London Dungeon’ is probably better quality.
Another band I miss, one that was active in the area around the middle of the last decade, is Philadelphia-based Not Alone. This is an acoustic version of one of their more popular songs, ‘In Angel’s Arms’.
As I promised last week, there are some quite popular and well-watched videos from my YouTube page. Because I featured #4 last Friday, I’m going to do the top three in reverse order here, beginning with number 3 from Petting Hendrix. It was recorded at the same 2009 Save the BreastFest show I recorded Chrome Donut at.
In at number 2 are local favorites Lower Class Citizens, which I recorded as they wrapped up the inaugural Good Beer Festival in Salisbury back in October, 2010.
And now my most popular music video, also recorded outdoors but at a different venue. From the 2010 Pork in the Park festivities, Smokin’ Gunnz reprises the Lynard Skynard classic ‘I Ain’t The One.’ But it is the one with the most views.
Next week I think I’m going to meander along the path I established with Not Alone and see what else I can dig up from bands which are no longer with us but in video form. Hey, it’s my series.
Until next Friday night, have a great week and rock the summer!
I just finished watching the Troopathon, and while it fell somewhat short of its $250,000 goal during the broadcast they still raised $221,415. That’s nothing to sneeze at and should enable many thousands of troops to get a surprise package in their mail.
Because I was away from much of the evening I didn’t see many of their big-name guests, but I was somewhat disappointed the register at the bottom of the telecast only showed just over 4,000 people watched the program co-hosted by CNN’s Dana Loesch, radio talk hosts J.D. Hayworth (a former Congressman) and Melanie Morgan, and Gold Star Mother Debbie Lee. Surely it didn’t help to no longer have Andrew Breitbart’s star power to draw more viewers.
Of course, just because the show is over that doesn’t mean the charity goes black, as Move America Forward collects donations all year. And while their goals have progressively become more modest over the years, the need will still be there for the foreseeable future.
I also don’t know how the blogger competition came out, but whether the Hot Air Steamers team I participated with did well or not every little bit helped. I know two of my “teammates,” The Lonely Conservative and Maggie’s Notebook, were carrying the Troopathon live on their site – for some reason those sort of windows don’t seem to work as well here. (It may be because I have to adjust the window to fit to my format – Ustream is finicky sometimes. I also have to use the old embed code for YouTube videos, so that may be a clue.) Regardless, the event can be reviewed at those two locations or at the Troopathon site.
Perhaps over the next few days a few late donations will put them over the top.
Update, 7-13, 10 p.m. – according to a Move America Forward e-mail I received, they indeed got some serious late donations:
Thanks to a very generous donor who wishes to remain anonymous, we are able to raise our goal to get care packages to more of our troops in Afghanistan. We set a modest goal of $250,000 because contributions had been dropping as our economy stalls.
We’re now in a position to get care packages to most of the troops that are in harm’s way. To get that many care packages, we raised our goal to $400,000 and are now only $28,539 short of hitting that mark. Can you help push us over the top so our military men and women will know they are not forgotten?
Combined with all the other money that has come in overnight, we’re now at a total of $371,461 raised for the Troopathon. That means we’ve achieved our initial goal, thanks to the generosity of many awesome patriots like yourself!
I knew Americans had it in them, so my faith in country is bolstered once again.
If he wasn’t in uniform, there’s a pretty good chance you could mistake Zach Davies for the batboy – that’s what happens when a slender, baby-faced 19-year-old plays professional baseball. But since he made his professional debut with the Shorebirds in April, last year’s 26th round Oriole pick – who was all ready to go to Arizona State before signing at the last minute last summer – has made South Atlantic League batters aware that he’s all grown up, with a change-up to match.
The versatile Davies began the season in the bullpen, but the promotion of another Shorebird hurler placed Zach into the starting rotation, where he’s thrived. Nowhere was that more apparent than in his last appearance Tuesday evening, where he threw a career-high seven innings in shutting out the Savannah Sand Gnats. Unfortunately, he got no decision in a duel which was lost by the Shorebirds’ bullpen 2-0.
But while Davies has only started nine of his 17 appearances, he finds himself leading the team in innings pitched with 75 1/3, to go with a 3-2 record and 3.70 ERA. Zach has struck out 56 and walked 29, which gives him a WHIP of 1.34. That’s quite respectable and better than the league average; bear in mind much of his peer group is pitching with 2 to 4 seasons of college experience. He may have been a low draft pick because of perceived signability issues in that he was committed to Arizona State, but the Sun Devils’ loss seems to be Delmarva’s gain and as Zach fills out a little bit he could add a few ticks to a mid-to high-80’s fastball.
As is the case with many high school pitchers, it will be interesting to see what the plans are for Zach during the remaining seven weeks of the season. Many high school pitchers run against an innings limit of around 100 innings in their first season, which means Zach may only have 4 to 5 starts left. So if you want to watch SAL batters try to match wits with the master of changing speeds, you may want to hurry.
The latest figures are in, and the redistricting petition has enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
It didn’t appear they received a whole lot of help from the Eastern Shore, however. Here’s the totals for the nine counties so far, although they probably won’t change much as the final couple thousand signers are validated:
Cecil – 500
Queen Anne’s – 430
Worcester – 255
Talbot – 251
Kent – 215
Wicomico – 143
Dorchester – 128
Caroline – 125
Somerset – 20
By my quick addition that’s 2,067 signatures delivered from an area which is about 1/10 of the state’s population. So we weren’t exactly proportional here.
I think part of the reason we trailed behind the rest of the state is the fact the Eastern Shore will almost certainly stay as the most significant geographic part of the First District. But had one proposed map been adopted, a rendition which actually split the lower end of the Eastern Shore south of Salisbury off and placed it into the Fifth Congressional District with southern Maryland, I believe we would have contributed thousands more signatures. Counties most affected (Anne Arundel and Baltimore) combined for about 2/5 of the total signatures, with another third coming from counties which were (or still are) in the Sixth Congressional District. With the radical changes caused by gerrymandering, that’s understandable.
Of course, we can count on the Maryland Democrat Party to try and thwart the will of the people. Upon the announcement that enough signatures were turned in to give the referendum a chance to make it to the ballot, they sniveled that the petition drive was only a “desperate partisan power grab.” Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Anyway, here’s their money quote from ten days ago:
Pending the State Board of Elections’ determination that the validated petition signatures satisfy constitutional requirements, the Maryland Democratic Party will weigh all options to protect the integrity of the referendum process and ensure that every petition was completed and collected in line with Maryland laws and regulations.
This from the party who wanted to have all circulator signatures notarized in an effort to disenfranchise petition signers, yet wails that any attempt at sensible photo voter identification requirements at the polls represents “voter suppression.” Yeah, they’re hypocrites. But most thinking people knew that, and they know their message is “see you in court.”
So today was a good day as perhaps yet another reason for good, conservative Marylanders to cast their ballot this November took shape. Resounding votes against in-state tuition for illegal aliens, gay marriage, and overly partisan gerrymandering which paid no attention to preserving the integrity of political subdivisions might convince the party in power that, hey, we need to listen to the voice of reason once in awhile. (Victories for Dan Bongino and 5 or 6 Congressional nominees might also pound home a message too. Listening to Democrats and the state’s primary media outlets – but I repeat myself – spin that one would be a riot.)
But just remember we have to win these fights to set ourselves up for more success in 2014.
I don’t like to stack posts on top of each other, so I’ll keep this short: as of this Tuesday evening, the Board of Elections has certified that 53,566 of the 60,266 signatures counted so far by the BOE on the referendum petition for Congressional districts are valid, leaving 5,456 to be counted. Of those, 2,170 or more need to be acceptable for the referendum to qualify. While the rejection rate has been higher on this petition than on the other two MDPetitions.com has sponsored over the last two years, it still should come out in the range of 58,000 valid signatures and that would be enough to place the referendum on the ballot.
Of course, it’s likely the validity of many signatures will be challenged by those same Democrats who came up with one of the most gerrymandered schemes in the country, one designed to shortchange both Republicans and minorities while protecting their incumbents. If the petition is beaten back, it will be up to the GOP to make the point to affected communities that the Maryland Democratic Party is the sole reason that they are being hosed.
There are two sides to (almost) every story, and after being raked over the coals by a Change Maryland study which received national attention and offended the sensibilities of our governor – you know, the one who’s already mentally measuring the drapes in the Oval Office? – the empire struck back today with a meaningless bunch of mumbo-jumbo about “partisan organization,” “decisive actions taken,” and “third lowest state and local tax burden adjusting for income.” Shoot, at least I parsed the actual study instead of picking out items which have little to do with Change Maryland’s point, although I thought it was telling that the O’Malley retort conveniently forgot to mention that those 2007 tax increases came with millions of dollars of additional spending.
Now that I’ve managed to get a breath in after that first paragraph, allow me to decipher what this really means: it was a direct hit to the O’Malley 2016 battleship. Obviously, the Change Maryland piece making it to CNBC – which, coincidentally, today put out their annual ranking of the top business-friendly states where Maryland only ranked 31st (a decline of 2 spots from last year) – had to be interpreted as a shot across the bow by O’Malley and Maryland Democrats. That’s why they had to make sure to paint Change Maryland as a “partisan organization.”
Yet it’s no surprise that Virginia and North Carolina, two states that Change Maryland highlighted as recipients of Maryland’s tax base loss, ranked #3 and #4 respectively in the CNBC survey. (Texas and Utah were first and second, while North Dakota rounded out the top 5. I also found it telling that right-to-work states comprised the top 7 in the rankings, 9 of the top 10, and 14 of the top 16; meanwhile, closed-shop states comprised the bottom 4 and 7 of the bottom 10.)
But there’s something that Governor O’Malley and his administration cannot paint over, and that’s the mounting frustration of many of Maryland’s working families who continue to see tax and fee increases to support higher and higher spending on those they see as not contributing to society, especially illegal immigrants. All around them, they see their cost of living going up with one exception: the value of their homes, which continues to plummet.
Maybe it’s not so acute in other parts of Maryland, like downtown Annapolis, but out here there’s a lot of worry. And the numbers don’t lie: on much of the Lower Shore – where good-paying jobs are hard to come by in a roaring economy, let alone the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy we’re under now (h/t to Tom Blumer of Bizzy Blog for that acronym) – those who left Wicomico, Dorchester, and Somerset counties had higher incomes than the arrivals did. I would also bet that if the northeastern quadrant of Worcester County (Ocean City, Berlin, and Ocean Pines) were excluded that county’s numbers would be similar.
My fellow Salisbury blogger Julie Brewington took less than 3 minutes while driving back from Ocean City to explain the quandary many thousands of not-so-Free Staters find themselves in. She well represents the producers of this economy:
I would guess that she and her husband, if they left, would tilt the income scale of the outgoing a little bit upward from the $37,000 or so figure that I gleaned for Wicomico County from the Change Maryland study. And it’s not just that, as her family has fairly deep roots in the area.
But if people don’t feel economically welcomed to a place, they will leave. Of course, that’s only my opinion but it seems to be an option more and more of those private-sector job creators in Maryland seem to be considering, to the detriment of those of the rest of us who choose to stay and fight. Who can blame them, though?
Knowing that the election is less than four months away and he’ll have little to show on the economic front, President Obama today revived the battle over the Bush tax cuts which were extended for two years after their originally planned 2010 expiration. However, Obama’s new proposal would extend them for just next year and target them to families making less than $250,000 a year – those more wealthy would revert to the Clinton-era tax rate of nearly 40 percent. That represents a rate increase of 13 percent over the current tax rate of 35 cents per dollar.
This election-year maneuver will make for some strange bedfellows. For Democrats, the choice of supporting their President also comes at the risk of hypocrisy, as many have blamed the Bush-era cuts for the rampant deficits piled up over the last decade. Instead, Democratic legislative party leaders like Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Charles Schumer have pressed for a higher income threshold for tax hikes, calling for a true millionaire’s tax by raising the rates only on families which make seven figures.
