Tag: doomsday session

The Hogan side of Franchot’s assessment

After yesterday’s lengthy post about Peter Franchot’s assessment of the state economy, I wondered how the Republican running for the state’s top job would react. Fortunately, I can distill his statement down to a couple short paragraphs:

(Wednesday’s) report is utterly devastating and confirms what we have been saying, that Martin O’Malley and Anthony Brown have taxed and spent our economy into the ground. Overtaxed Marylanders are earning less, small business profits are disappearing and people have less to spend on goods and services.

As governor, I’ll put partisan politics aside and work across the aisle to undo the damage of the past eight years. We’ll work together to reign in reckless spending and waste so we can roll back as many of the O’Malley and Brown’s 40 straight tax hikes as possible. It’s time for Annapolis to live within its means so people can keep more of their hard earned money.

I was fine with that until the part about “work together,” particularly with regard to an event last week with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie:

The Democrats want to tell you that Governor Christie and I are far-right extremists. Our similarities stem from the fact that we are commonsense Republicans that are prepared to reach across the aisle in order for progress and prosperity. That is why Governor Christie was overwhelmingly reelected in the blue state of New Jersey to a second term. And that is why Marylanders are ready for a Republican governor in Annapolis.

Unfortunately in this partisan day and age, for a Republican reaching across the aisle means getting your arm bit off and used as a club to beat you with. Remember, the reason for Christie’s initial popularity was his get-tough stance with the state’s unions, and I honestly don’t see those sort of stones with Larry Hogan.

It’s obvious we have a problem in this state, as Franchot pointed out. But the problem isn’t just in the governor’s office, it’s in the bowels of the General Assembly as well.

Remember the “doomsday budget” session of a couple years ago, and the big deal many in the General Assembly made that spending “only” went up $700 million instead of the $1.2 billion they eventually received? Imagine that fight every year.

Depending on how many Democrats are returned to Annapolis, the budget that Governor Hogan would send out might only get 50 or 60 House votes, so the overriding question is what tradeoffs will we have to endure? Or will Hogan surprise me and take the bully pulpit, going over the heads of the General Assembly and the press to convince the people to demand action on a leaner budget? We know the unions wouldn’t take cuts lying down, so are those on the side of sanity going to go to Annapolis and tell Big Labor to pound sand when they mass in protest like they did a few years back? Fifty isn’t much against 5,000 and their box lunches.

(By the way, I should point out the link above was one of the posts where I lost all my pictures when Photoshop folded into Adobe Revel and rendered all my photo links obsolete. I spent a good half-hour fixing it for presentation last night because it was important to convey the sort of protest Larry Hogan can expect if he stands his ground.)

I certainly hope Larry wins and comes out with budgets which reflect sanity and not just a 4-6 percent increase each year. But be warned it won’t come without a fight. And we can live with Larry’s middle-of-the-road, reach-across-the-aisle tendencies if we can get some conservatives to Annapolis to keep him in line, with the rest of us having his back when he makes those promised cuts.

Martin O’Malley’s (not-so) greatest hits – how about a new song?

Returning once again to a familiar role of thorn in the side and burr under the saddle, Change Maryland and Larry Hogan took the occasion of the final legislative session under Martin O’Malley to remind us of his underwhelming record of “accomplishments” over the last long eight years, wrapped up in one release. All we needed was the bow, as Change Maryland remarked that:

  • They broke promises to state workers by diverting $200,000,000 from pension funds to plug their budget gap.
  • They’ve eviscerated local arts funding to hike the film tax credit for Hollywood millionaires.
  • They raided the Transportation Trust Fund then raised gas taxes to pay for mass transit.
  • They hiked income taxes on families, small business and large employers.
  • They blew $125,000,000 of our tax dollars on a health exchange website that still doesn’t work and was never needed in the first place; today, more Marylanders lack health insurance than when O’Malley-Brown took office.
  • More than 73,000 residents have had their health insurance policies cancelled and tens of thousands more have seen massive increases in their premiums and deductibles.
  • They put the teacher union bosses that bankroll their political machine ahead of students, parents and classroom teachers.
  • They’ve badly mismanaged the education budget, as a result inner city schools are falling farther behind, state SAT scores are down and elementary school reading aptitude is flat. And, even the teacher union said their rollout of Common Core was a mismanaged “train wreck.”
  • Their job-destroying tax hikes on the so-called rich and small businesses – those individuals earning $100k or more – backfired, missing revenue projections.
  • Some entry level jobs will pay a little more but there will be fewer of them.
  • There’s a federal investigation into the Anthony Brown Health Exchange but state lawmakers aren’t issuing their findings until well after the primaries.
  • Thousands of employers are now “paying their fair share” in taxes albeit to Virginia and the Carolinas; about 6,500 companies have left Maryland taking with them more than 100,000 jobs.
  • Likewise, more than 31,000 Maryland residents left for more affordable states, taking $1.7 billion each year out of our economy; among these were thousands of seniors on fixed incomes who can no longer afford to retire near their families.
  • It costs you more when it rains and more again when you drive to the beach.

Describing the O’Malley era as one where, “(i)n nearly every quality of life measurement our state is worse off than it was seven years ago… even areas that showed modest improvement came at a horrendous financial cost due (to) Martin O’Malley and Anthony Brown’s mismanagement and one-party rule in Annapolis,” it’s clear that Hogan isn’t too enamored with the last seven years.

But while Hogan strives to “get the government off our backs and out of our pockets so we can grow the private sector, put people back to work and turn our economy around,” we’re more or less supposed to take his word for it. Obviously some of these items he complains about from the outside will be ones he may well find useful when he takes over the governor’s chair. For example, he (or anyone else for that matter) will have to figure out how to backfill the pension funds, live with the increasing minimum wage (which, for all his charms, he won’t be able to get the General Assembly Democrats to rescind), and roll back taxes and fees to previous levels yet keep the budget in balance. That aspect may actually be the easiest because he would set the budget. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with Obamacare for at least the first two years of anyone’s term, and probably longer.

However, I have a prediction for you. If the budget gets smaller – or even if it’s level-funded – you will hear a howling like you’ve never heard before from the special interests, press, and Democrats (but I repeat myself) who will be out marching in the streets against the heartless Republicans. Remember why we had a Special Session a couple years ago? It was because we passed a “doomsday budget” that was “only” $700 million higher than the previous one, and despite GOP objection we ended up raising spending another $500 million. Again, that was with a budget increase! Heaven help us if we actually proposed spending less money!

So those we elect in 2014 need to be ready and be stiff of spine because those Annapolis fat cats are going to come after us. We threaten their existence on the government teat and they know it. Having a $125 million boondoggle of a health exchange isn’t helping, which is why that scandal is being swept under the rug just as fast as the broom can collect the dirt.

In this part of the state we have some opportunities to chip away at the Democrats’ overall advantage. We’ll have to wait until 2018 to win back the District 37A seat – which will be held for the time being by a woman who I predict will have the same reliably far-left voting record as her predecessor – but aside from that we can speak our piece by ejecting two members of the General Assembly who will occasionally vote the right way when they get the hall pass to do so, but can be replaced by two members who we know will stand up for our interests. We can confound the Democrats’ cynical redistricting ploys by elevating Mike McDermott to the Senate and getting the fresh new ideas of Maryland Municipal League president Carl Anderton, Jr. into the House of Delegates.

Changing the state means pulling our weight, and the Eastern Shore can do most of its part by leaving just one Democrat east of the Chesapeake for the next four years.

Picket line and dueling rallies to punctuate Maryland Special Session

Editor’s note 5/27/2022: I have brought this home from the dead Examiner.com pages.

One participant only expects it to last two days, but the upcoming Special Session of the Maryland General Assembly may have just as much action on the outside as it will on the inside.

As currently scheduled, events outside begin with a “picket line” being organized by the “We the People” group of Carroll County at 9:30 a.m. That effort – complete with “union dues” which will be collected for donation to the Maryland Food Bank – will give way to a noontime press conference by the Maryland chapter of Americans for Prosperity at the State House in Annapolis.

Later on, dueling – but not simultaneous – rallies will inhabit Lawyers Mall outside the capital late Monday afternoon. First will be a “Last Chance Rally for Tax Fairness” hosted by Progressive Maryland, beginning at 5:30 and lasting about an hour. They will be urging the General Assembly to pass the tax hikes necessary to forestall the so-called “doomsday budget” which only increases spending by $700 million over last year’s expenditures, as opposed to the $1.2 billion spending hike originally envisioned by Governor Martin O’Malley. Along with a significant increase in tax rates on high-income earners progressives would also like an increased tax on non-cigarette tobacco products, a toll which was included in the budget reconciliation bill which died along with the regular session at midnight April 9.

After the liberal side yields the field, once again those who oppose the prospect of tax hikes and believe the state can do more with less will begin their affair, the Rally Against the Doomsday Session. The event is scheduled for two hours, and is slated to start at 7 p.m. Obviously there could be a few counter-protestors at each event who stand in opposition to the side then holding court at Lawyers Mall.

While it was expected the legislature would reconvene at some point in the wake of the confusion of the Maryland General Assembly’s last regular session day, Governor O’Malley presented his case in his announcement regarding the Special Session: “There is too much at stake not to move forward. I’m confident we can…complete this most important work for the people of our State,” claimed the governor.

But other voices beg to differ. Senate Minority Leader E.J. Pipkin, a Republican, criticized O’Malley as having “shown a breathtaking inability to manage the fiscal matters of state” in his six years as governor. He also complained that legislators won’t have time to review new spending bills before their hearing, noting “there is no legislator in the world capable of reading and analyzing this mass of material in a few hours.” Said Pipkin,“The unheard speed with which this legislation is being forced to passage makes it clear the powers-that-be do not really want to give legislators time to study the proposals,” adding this was a “cruel mockery” of the normal legislative process.

Even some Democrats dislike the idea. State Comptroller Peter Franchot, a likely 2014 candidate for Governor, called the Special Session a “black eye” that takes the state “100 miles per hour in the wrong direction.”

Most who will attend the latter rally Monday night would tend to agree with Pipkin and Franchot. This sentiment was also echoed in remarks made by Delegate Mike McDermott at a Wednesday meeting in Wicomico County, where he stated the belief Democrats “have already cut the deal” on a tax increase in closed-door meetings last week, making the Special Session perfunctory.

A prospective 2014 GOP gubernatorial candidate also questioned the need for an income tax increase, pointing out the state already has a high reliance on its income tax. Larry Hogan, speaking on behalf of the group Change Maryland, said that the state’s Department of Legislative Services reported the news at length prior to the 2012 session. “One has to wonder if the Governor, Senate President, and House Speaker are reading the reports provided for them,” said Hogan.“This report raises red flags about Maryland’s over-reliance on the income tax to support state spending.”

Polling also suggests those who oppose the “doomsday session” may have the public on their side. In January House of Delegates freshman Republicans commissioned a Gonzales Poll, a survey which found 63% of Maryland respondents believed their taxes were too high, with an additional one-third describing them as just enough. (The specific poll questions and results are not available online.) Those who responded in the negative regarding taxes weren’t given options as to what spending would need to be trimmed in order to match any revenue shortfalls, though.

But it’s likely the hundreds who show up from around the state on Monday for the Lawyers Mall events will have their own sets of solutions for the General Assembly to consider.