McDermott’s state of the state

While he is a freshman in the Maryland General Assembly, Mike McDermott has had to deal with the O’Malley administration for the last four-plus years as mayor of Pocomoke City – he used the experience to move on to his current job.

So I found his response interesting and I asked Mike if I could use it here. (I took the liberty to fix a couple minor grammatical errors in the meantime.) I told the Delegate I agreed with much of it, although I have a few more comments after his.

Today, the full body of Maryland’s General Assembly heard from Governor O’Malley about his vision for Maryland, and his interpretation of the past year. The Governor stated in his speech, “Everything has a cost…” Well, the question Marylanders are asking is, “How much?”

His proposed budget holds our deficit at $1.2 billion while actually increasing spending by over $2 billion. There are several fund raids conducted from the Transportation Trust Fund ($120 million) and the Chesapeake Bay Trust Fund ($90 million) with additional tax increases to replace the raided funds. At the same time, the governor plans to increase our debt through the issuance of bonds. This will further push our debt ceiling to the edge.

We cannot afford bonuses for all state employees ($750.00), nor the five additional paid holidays he is offering. We cannot afford to continue cutting Medicaid reimbursements while, at the same time, taking our enrollment up over a million Marylanders (20% of our population). We simply cannot afford to extend ourselves at a time when the revenues from our citizens are contracting.

Today the governor spoke about the state creating winners and losers when it comes to business and industry. If you are about “green” jobs, you’re a winner; if not, you’re a loser. When the state predicates tax incentives and government backed funding sources to favored industry, it is akin to the king extending the scepter to whomever he wishes. Wind farms may be a great idea, but they need to stand on their own as a business endeavor. When the governor talks about “investments”, he should be talking about the private sector, not tax dollars.

We heard about the governors desire to place a moratorium on septic systems in rural developments, with no regard of the chilling effect this could have on land values, private property rights, and development on the Eastern Shore. He stated that “where we eat, sleep, and live…” is affecting our environment as if this, too, is something the government should control.

The governor stated we were “moving forward”, while his budget anchors us to our indebtedness. He called us a grand “experiment in self government”, while he offers only additional regulations, fees, and taxes on the business community. He says, “It’s all about jobs”, as if the government is the one who creates those jobs. The “ghost of disconnect” continues to haunt Maryland policy.

The bottom line is the governor expressed more visible outrage over the recent power outages in Prince George’s County than he did about the dismal state of our economy, and our failure to address critical budget areas when time was of the essence.

Governor O’Malley wants us to move toward a “knowledge based” economy. Well, that begins with a wisdom based budget, and that was sorely missing from the State of the State Address I heard today.

Obviously McDermott looks at the budget mostly from the standpoint of fiscal conservatism, but the part of O’Malley’s address which stood out to me was the effort to ban the use of septic systems. Yesterday, he bleated about those devices, which:

“…by their very design are intend to leak sewage into our Bay and water tables.

You and I can turn around this damaging trend by banning the further installation of septic systems in major Maryland housing developments. This is common sense, this is urgently needed, this is timely, and for the health of the Bay we need to do what several rural counties have already had the good sense to do.”

That “good sense” is actually law mandated by the General Assembly, and passed over the objection of Delegates and Senators from both parties. In fact, such a ban would essentially halt residential development within the Bay’s watershed unless a municipality extends sewer lines to the new plat. (Of course, that’s the overarching goal of those who advocate so-called “smart growth” anyway.) The state already can’t pay for all those who have septic systems but are forced by regulation to install nitrogen reduction units, even though they promised to help.

So “investment” (read: taxpayer subsidy) in “green” jobs in other countries (where they make components for wind turbines and solar panels) are okay, but home construction jobs on the Eastern Shore are verboten. Is that the way it works, Governor?

Then again, he and the Democrats tend to believe in the “One Maryland” theory while I contend there’s actually at least three: the Eastern Shore has more in common with rural Delaware while the western end of the state has a mindset like the rest of Appalachia. It’s those along the I-95 corridor between Baltimore and Washington who are arrogant enough to believe the rest of the state should be like them – on the other hand, it’s my impression those of us on the Eastern Shore wouldn’t be all that unhappy if the Bay Bridge suddenly collapsed into the Chesapeake. Policy dictated to us from on high in Annapolis doesn’t fly well here – wonder why?

While Delegate McDermott probably already knew all he wanted to know before taking the job, he’s getting a firsthand look at the situation now.

By the way, I was hoping to get a second perspective on Mike’s remarks but haven’t received it yet. I’ll either add the remarks here or make a second post, depending on how I think they’ll work best.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.