Empty lot, empty promise from a state empty of opportunities for business?

Countering the claim that approving Question 7 would lead to thousands of jobs in Baltimore City, those who oppose O’Malley’s measure wonder if that’s just another empty promise.

It’s totally appropriate to point out that the general situate was approved in 2008 when Maryland voters originally approved slots. So Harrah’s has had almost four years to put something together in a time period where two other casino facilities were built and one renovated. So why did they wait? Was the deal not made sweet enough by the state; not enough of a cut?

Meanwhile, the governor who called the Special Session so we could spend our fall discussing how many millions would come out of state taxpayer pockets and whether they would come as a result of games of chance or future tax increases continues to “lead” a state which remains in the bottom 10 in terms of business climate. Guess who publicized this statistic? (Three guesses, first two don’t count.) Does the name Larry Hogan ring a bell?

The Change Maryland head noted:

Since 2007, in addition to losing 6,500 small businesses, Maryland has lost 31,000 residents of tax-paying households and 36,000 jobs. It’s no coincidence that our lopsided tax code is causing this weakness in economic performance.

More troubling is that our immediately neighboring states (Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia) rank anywhere from 14th to 27th. When compared to Maryland’s 41st ranking, these other states look like a business paradise. Virginia does it without the benefit of casinos, while the others already have the table games Maryland seeks because they showed more foresight in creating an attractive climate for gamblers. This seems to match their practice in trying to attract and retain private-sector employers.

Unfortunately, the Maryland Constitution doesn’t allow voters to have a say when it comes to fiscal issues because they’re not subject to the same referendum laws other bills passed into law are. Perhaps that’s a good thing since otherwise we may rival California with the number of ballot issues we would face. A further disadvantage, though, is the fact we have the same Democratic control of the state for another two years, without a chance for a mid-term correction like many other states have.

We’re stuck for another two years with a General Assembly similar to the one which shirked its duty back in 2007 by punting the gambling issue to voters yet is only too happy to tax citizens and punish businesses in order to redistribute wealth in both directions: from rich to poor through their fiscal schemes and back from poor to rich via gambling.

In order to get out of the bottom 10 for business climate and bring sanity to the gaming industry, change is truly necessary. The first step is rebuffing Martin O’Malley and slapping down his overly ambitious agenda by defeating Questions 4 through 7.

Is your Congressman protected?

Fresh off the latest fundraising scalp claimed by Barack Obama, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Institute has publicized a report called “America the Vulnerable: Are Foreign and Fraudulent Online Campaign Contributions Influencing U.S. Elections? Among its key findings are a number of disturbing facts about the President’s online contribution reporting, including these which should give advocates of good government pause:

Obama.com Purchased By An Obama Bundler In Shanghai, China With Questionable Business Ties to State-Run Chinese Enterprises: In 2008, Obama.com was purchased by an Obama fundraiser living in Shanghai, China, whose business is heavily dependent on relationships with Chinese state-run television and other state-owned entities.

68% Of Traffic To Anonymously Registered Obama.com Is Foreign: According to industry leading web analytics site Markosweb, an anonymously registered redirect site (Obama.com) features 68 % foreign traffic. Starting in December 2011, the site was linked to a specific donation page on the official BarackObama.com campaign website for ten months. The page loaded a tracking number, 634930, into a space on the website labeled “who encouraged you to make this donation.” That tracking number is embedded in the source code for Obama.com and is associated with the Obama Victory Fund. In early September 2012, the page began redirecting to the standard Obama Victory Fund donation page.

So as not to pick on Barack Obama, the group also found fault with Marco Rubio’s 2010 Senate campaign and also nearly half of the Congressional campaigns which accept credit card donations. Among Maryland’s nine members of Congress running this cycle, Dutch Ruppersberger (2nd District), Donna Edwards (4th District), Steny Hoyer (5th District), and Elijah Cummings (7th District) do not use this protection.

But another problem GAI noticed was the lack of accountability in federal campaigns, where amounts under $200 need not be reported unless a campaign was audited; moreover, amounts under $50 aren’t even recorded. (This is why fundraising appeals from both sides often use tiny amounts, like $3 or $5. If Barack Obama can get a million people to enter a celebrity contest, that’s $3-$5 million he collects but doesn’t have to account for. And if it’s not accounted for, the money could come from anywhere.)

It’s worth pondering that Barack Obama gets a much more significant portion of his funding from small donations than Mitt Romney does. Certainly the vast percentage of those contributions are on the up-and-up, but what if even 20% of the $600 million Obama has collected in small donations came from foreign or fraudulent sources? Erick Erickson of RedState did just that as a test, and the Obama campaign failed.

Obviously this group, led by Hoover Institution Research Fellow and author Peter Schweizer, would tend to skew toward a conservative, good-government point of view, but they bring up a lot of valid points. They dug up several examples of Obama donations being promoted and encouraged on foreign websites in their report, which runs over 100 pages.

This story is attracting notice in a lot of conservative corners (like this piece at Breitbart.com), which could provide another plate for the mainstream media ignorance court jesters to keep spinning.