“Let?s get to work,” was Gov. Martin O?Malley?s message to the General Assembly Monday night in an 8½-minute speech that emphasized the need to find consensus about overcoming a $1.7 billion deficit and “making progress” on important new initiatives.
Calling Maryland “the wealthiest state in the nation,” O?Malley said: “Our challenge is not capacity. Our challenge is consensus.”
“The storm is upon us, and this looming [budget] shortfall threatens to do grave damage to the very quality of life that our neighbors have elected us to defend,” the governor told a joint session of the House and Senate.
“This is not merely about correcting the flawed math of the past,” he said. “Everything we do to restore fiscal responsibility to our state is really about making progress for the future: progress for the education of our children, progress for affordable college, progress for the healthcare of our workforce, progress on transportation, progress for the health and sustainability of the Chesapeake Bay.”
Read the full text of the governor’s speech below
“I thought the governor was effective in bringing the body together,” said Sen. Ulysses Currie, D-Prince George?s, chairman of the Budget and Taxation Committee that will play a key role in shaping the final package. “This is a great first step in the special session.”
O?Malley said he expected the legislators “to study, debate and improve upon the fairness of the framework proposed.”
Sen. Thomas Mac Middleton, D-Charles, said, “He set a very positive tone” for the session, evoking a bipartisan spirit. But “we?ve got some hard work ahead of us,” Middleton said.
Middleton chairs the Senate Finance Committee which willreview O?Malley?s $250 million proposal to expand health insurance coverage. “I think he?s responding to Marylanders on that,” he said, even though it is not part of the existing deficit. “That?s part of the fix as far as I?m concerned,” he said.
Passing slot machine gambling, “that?s going to be the toughest [part] of all,” Middleton said. He has not voted for most slot machine gambling bills in the past, but “I would be inclined to vote for a referendum.”
Sen. Joan Carter Conway, D-Baltimore City, chair of the Education, Health and Environment Committee, said city lawmakers are focused on maintaining Thornton school aid funding.
“There?s not a consensus on slots,” Conway said. Mayor Sheila Dixon “dropped a bombshell” on the city lawmakers at a meeting last Thursday when she proposed a slots location near Westport south of downtown. “We were very shocked, because they said that Baltimore City was not a site” for slots.
Del. Maggie McIntosh, a city Democrat, said says she’s not sure she supports slots in Maryland, but could probably support a referendum. She thinks many of her colleagues agree.
“I don’t believe I support slots in Maryland,” McIntosh said. “I still haven’t gotten there yet, but [a referendum] would be better. I think the governor would pick up more votes that way.”
O?Malley will have to pick up a super majority of votes in the House and Senate to put the slots measure on the ballot for voters as a constitutional amendment.
Del. Jim Mathias, former mayor of Ocean City, said he’s torn between business owners in the resort town — where hotel, motel and restaurant owners posted anti-slots signs during the Maryland Association of Counties annual convention this summer — and the rest of his Worcester County district, which supports legalized slot machines.
O’Malley has proposed placing 3,250 slots terminals at the Ocean Downs racetrack,just outside Ocean City. Mathias said he would co-sponsor a bill that gives local residents veto power over slots locations.
He said he could support slots only if funds were funneled to support transportation and tourism in hosting counties. “If we can’t get these specifics negotiated, I can’t support it,” Mathias said. “But I’m being open minded. I’m looking to negotiate.”
Staff writer Jaime Malarkey contributed to this story. [email protected]
Join the discussion and take our poll in today’s examiNation Baltimore: What do you want to tell Gov. O’Malley about the state’s budget woes?
GOV. MARTIN O’MALLEY SPECIAL SESSION SPEECH
Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, thank you for inviting me to join you here tonight. And thank you also for the extraordinary amount of work, dialogue, and collaboration of these last several months. This joint session and the joint hearings that will follow are further evidence of the goodwill and statesmanship that you have both shown in meeting this challenge. Thank you for your counsel and for your trust.
The leadership of your respective bodies ? Senator Currie along with Delegate Conway and Delegate Hixson; Senator Middleton along with Delegate Hammen; Senator DeGrange along with Delegate Branch; Senator Kasemeyer along with Delegate Barve and President Pro Tem Nathaniel McFadden, Speaker Pro Tem Jones and others ? have contributed greatly to the creation of a consensus plan for Maryland?s future. And I thank you both for surrounding yourselves with such able and principled leaders.
To the members of the MarylandGeneral Assembly, of both parties, you have my sincere thanks ? and more importantly that of your neighbors ? for setting aside the many responsibilities of your family and business lives to return here for the urgent work of this special session.
My fellow Marylanders, as you are no doubt aware, 5 years ago ? and in bipartisan fashion ? we made a historic and necessary investment in improving public education. Sadly, at the same time we voted in similar bi-partisan fashion to reduce the very revenues needed to sustain such an important investment and to defend our quality of life. We now face one of the toughest fiscal challenges in our State?s 373 year history.
As prior generations might have warned us ? there is no progress without sacrifice, no shared return without shared investment, and no future better than this present, unless we are willing to work for it.
This inherited structural deficit ? a deficit which has now cast its shadow over the progress of our people for the last five years ? can no longer be deferred. The storm is upon us; and this looming shortfall threatens to do grave damage to the very quality of life that our neighbors have elected us to defend?
The stakes are high; the potential damage too harmful to accept. Further delay will only compound the difficulty of correcting the half-actions and inactions of our recent past.
“The occasion is piled high with difficulty,” but the goals of this special session are straightforward:
To restore fiscal responsibility to the government of our people.
To protect our investments in education, health and public safety so very critical to future of the state we leave our children.
And to do so in a way that not only protects our competitive advantage with surrounding states, but is also fairer to the working people of Maryland.
In one sense, our challenge is as timelessas the human condition itself: will the circumstances we?ve inherited change us, or will we change our circumstances? It?s time for us to correct our course. It is time for us to pass a long-term budget solution that?s fairer to middle class families ? and ensures Maryland?s progress for the future.
By now you have had the opportunity to receive our proposals for restoring fiscal responsibility and returning to the path of progress. Many of the components of this plan have been considered by members of this Assembly many times before. Many have been proposed and passed before by one house or the other. And in the important days ahead, you will, no doubt, have the opportunity to study, debate and improve upon the fairness of the framework proposed.
Although we are blessed with the distinction of being the wealthiest State in the nation according to the US Census, our tax burden is below average. We rank 31st among the 50 states in spending on a per capita basis; and 50th out of 50 states in terms of what we spend through our local and state governments to defend our quality of life, as a percentage of our wealth.
Our challenge is not capacity; our challenge is consensus.
And I have faith in the abilities of the men and women of this Assembly to forge that consensus. In your hearts and regardless of party, each of you knows there is more that unites us than divides us?
We, here, are united in our belief in the dignity of every individual. We, here, are united in our belief in our own responsibility to advance the common good.
For this is not merely about correcting the flawed math of the past. Everything we do to restore fiscal responsibility to our State is really about making progress for the future? progress for the education of our children? progress for affordable college? progress for the healthcare of our workforce? progress on transportation? progress for the health and sustainability of the Chesapeake Bay.
Yes, everything we do to restore fiscal responsibility to our State is really about making progress for the future. Perhaps that is why Maryland?s teachers have declared: “A vote for the plan is a vote for public schools…”
And so, men and women of Maryland, let us fulfill this responsibility together. On the common ground that exists between us, cooled by the clear waters of civil discourse, and breathing the honest air of mutual understanding, let us forge a consensus for the One Maryland we carry in our hearts and that all of our children deserve.
As we begin our work, remember, if you will, the words of a great American uttered to another representative assembly of his own time:
“? Fellow citizens,” he said, “We cannot escape history. We… will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation… We ? even we here ? hold the power and bear the responsibility?”
Thank you for your service, your resolve, and your dedication to the best interests of our people in the face of this challenge.
May God lead the deliberations of this important session.
Let?s get to work.
