Posted on 06/28/2007 6:57:50 AM PDT by sickoflibs
In an exercise of political theater intended to set the stage for tax increases and possibly slot machines, legislators got a grim look yesterday at how the state (democrats) could balance the budget with spending cuts alone.
The "doomsday budget" - ordered up by (democrat) legislative leaders to make the case that Maryland's expected $1.5 billion shortfall requires revenue increases - would cut state funding for public education by $500 million.
It would cut grants for police officers, force tuition increases at state universities, freeze state workers' salaries, eliminate hundreds of state jobs and close some state institutions, including the Walter P. Carter Center, a psychiatric hospital in Baltimore.
Maryland's top political leaders (democrats)agree that the doomsday budget will not come to pass, as each intends to push a variety of revenue-increasing options, ranging from a penny increase in the sales tax to an increase in the gas tax to allowing slot machines at race tracks.
It was also a reminder of the simplest equation of budget politics: Just as a surplus is an opportunity for every legislator to push a favorite program, a deficit pushes every legislator to defend favorites from elimination.
"Everybody has their own program," said Montgomery County Democrat Sheila E. Hixson, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. "You know that they're going to fight to keep that, and if we do that, you're going to increase taxes."
Some Republican legislators suggested that recent state spending increases have produced the current budget crisis, and they have previously proposed deep spending cuts instead of tax increases.
"We didn't feel, given our sense of the public's priorities, that this deficit could be solved without new revenue," O'Malley (newly elected democrat Governor) said.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
http://www.mdgop.org/FlexPage.aspx?area=TalkingPoints
Thanks Maryland!
You won't see this on Lou Dobbs 'War on the Middle Class' series.
All Maryland residents should have to do to see the effects of price controls and other artificial regulations is look to California’s energy situation.
Unfortunatly most Americans are too thick to realize that if you repeat the same insanity over and over again you’ll get the same results.
Socialism doesn't work.
And Maryland has become a virtual sanctuary state for illegal aliens.
Some state has to be the poster boy for abject liberal failure. Why not Maryland?
'Cause Massachusetts already won that prize.
People in MD need to start holding their corrupt officials to account. Not that PA is much better lately.
Yes, those make work programs bring votes, which is their "public" priority.
The county and state governments have gotten fat and lazy off of the property tax boom caused by the housing market from 2002 to about 2005. Rather than use the extra revenue to reduce deficits or put aside contingency funds, they spent it all, expanding “services” (i.e., patronage jobs) assuming that they could continue to reap 10% annual increases in property taxes indefinitely.
Ok, so whats the problem? Pass the thing...
ROFLMAO...the majority of the people in MD vote Democrat and have no clue what corruption is or what accountability requires. Example: The State Board of Education is crowing about the 40% of Baltimore High School students who fail to graduate. You see, it used to be worse.
The dirty politicians always go right to the high-profile cuts when they are forced to live within their means. Cops are laid off, college tuition rates are raised, parks are closed. Everything is carefully calculated to make the public feel the maximum pain possible.
But the taxpayer-supported unionized fat cats behind the scenes never have to tighten their belts. Their numbers and their lavish pay and benefits increase constantly, under Republicans and Democrats alike.
The story talks about "hundreds" of state jobs eliminated, but I bet it will be only a couple of hundred low-ranking sacrifical lambs, out of tens of thousands of worthless bureaucrats with lifelong sinecures sucking the taxpayer's teat.
We should force the fat-assed lazy $150,000-per-year "diversity coordinators" and "program specialists" and "deputy assistant administrators" onto the street by the tens of thousands. Not only do these armies of useless eaters accomplish nothing more than writing memos to each other and getting in the way of honest businessmen, but they are almost all lifelong voluptuaries of big government and left-wing ideology, and provide the most dependable foot soldiers for Democratic political candidates.
For the most part they are otherwise-unemployable social science/liberal arts grads who would be flipping burgers or collecting welfare if they hadn't tumbled into the taxpayers' tub of butter. I say we kick 80% of them to the curb. If we round up and deport the illegal aliens at the same time, there will be plenty of honest menial jobs waiting for the newly unemployed bureaucrats.
-ccm
Good luck with all that.
Governor Ehrlich turned a 4 billion dollar deficit into a Billion dollar surplus in four years. The democrats have bee here a year lost the surplus and are screaming for more money.
This is blamed on all Maryland voters while it should really be blamed on 3 counties and the city of Baltimore.
Blacks liberals and yellow dog democrats got us into this mess. They threw out a competent Governor and replaced him with a Baltimore POS mayor who completely failed in Baltimore.
Ehrlich didnt help by picking a poor candidate for Lt.Governor either.
Government is a freaking joke these days. No brains, no morals, no accountability, no direction other than Socialism. They be just suckin' (anyone / everyone) for another cash fix.
Excuse my vulgarity.....but, at this point in time....I ain't too far off.
I hate this state.
Our Boy Governor strikes again!
They need to be informed well enough to do so. A significant percentage of Marylanders are willfully ignorant. We got Cardin and Mikulski as Senators and a Boy Governor.
BTW, both of them voted "aye" for cloture this afternoon (no surprise).
Yup... as I predicted during the campaign -- if elected, O'Malley would do TO the rest of the state what he did TO Baltimore.
Help me. I'm just not seeing the problem with this.
I spoke to the local powers in the democrat party and asked them why they would vote for such a man. I was told that he would do whatever the party told him to do. They knew he was bad ,but they also knew he was a puppet.
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