“You make less, government takes more.”

We haven’t heard a whole lot from gubernatorial candidate Ron George lately. Certainly part of the problem was a lack of campaign money to get his message out, complicated by this side job he had of being a Delegate during the session. (According to the Maryland Legislative Watch website, out of all the votes available Ron was absent for just one – albeit an important one for SB134 – on January 28. Heather Mizeur also was out one day, March 13, and missed a total of eight votes. Both should be commended for that attendance record despite the crimp it certainly put in campaigning.)

But all along George has maintained perhaps the most comprehensive platform, and to be quite honest Ron’s impressed me in the race as one of the work horses as opposed to one of the show horses.

So it was nice to see the succinct line I quoted as the title as the lede to a recent release from George:

You make less, government takes more. That is Martin O’Malley’s economic model. News broke this morning that the number of state employees making over $100,000 grew in the last year alone by 20% (Maryland Reporter, May 13, 2014). This follows a trend that O’Malley started in 2007 at the start of the recession. As the recession began, other governors such as Tim Kaine cut their administration’s payrolls and budgets, but Martin O’Malley drastically increased the pay to his staff. Over the course of an eight year recession, he has increased government spending by 36%! In his first five years alone, O’Malley decreased the private sector by a net of 73,000 jobs, yet government grew by 26,500 jobs. I know. I was there on the front lines. As your next governor, it is a trend I plan to stop.

Help me build a new Maryland. One that stops the taking and starts the growing. While others running sat wishing someday to be governor, I rolled up my sleeves, got in the fight, exposed waste, won battles for secure drivers licenses, a tech tax repeal, lower boat excise tax, and helped kill 240 of the 320 taxes proposed.

The latter portion alluded to his eight years in the General Assembly. Unfortunately, Ron missed an opportunity: it’s “O’Malley/Brown.” Have to tie those two together since they are essentially peas in a pod.

But all this – and more – is true of Maryland over the last eight years; moreover, it’s not just a fiscal phenomenon. Government in Annapolis has taken our local control of zoning matters, threatened counties which, in their belief, don’t spend enough on education – talk about bullying! – restricted our Second Amendment freedom, increased the surveillance state, and placed an unneeded moratorium on a viable and vital development for portions of our state. Would all of this have happened under an Ehrlich/name your 2010 Republican successor administration? Perhaps, but I doubt it.

And Ron must be raising a little bit of money as he retained a young man new to the region as his Communications Director. As he is a graduate of the University of Toledo, I would wager Casey Cheap is familiar with my birthplace, so that immediately piqued my interest. Perhaps a George-driven economy could bring a few more from the Midwest?

I also noticed one more thing about the George release:

Each donor will receive a call from me personally.

It seems like the “smile and dial” should really be on the soliciting end, but it appears Ron is taking a page out of the Dan Bongino playbook and calling to thank individual donors. While he’s free to call me anytime anyway, let me say that if you think Ron has a good message he could certainly use the financial support. It’s not like he’s built up thousands of Facebook likes from a vague message of “change” without a ton of substance behind it.

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