Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and former governor Bob Ehrlich again clung to their records in office, turning Thursday’s second debate of the Maryland election into another political missile-throwing match with limited substantive discussion about the future.
Ehrlich claimed O’Malley’s administration is stifling small businesses, instigating class warfare, driving away corporate headquarters, relying too much on federal money and investing in unrealistic transit plans.
O’Malley claimed Ehrlich “failed” as governor and is unable to provide a concrete plan to fund his planned sales tax cut. He says his opponent is playing into “politics of fear,” siding with big corporations and “talking down” the state’s poor and black population.
“The bottom line to this debate is who you trust,” Ehrlich said in his opening remarks before roughly 200 people watching the debate, which was hosted by the Washington Post, WAMU88.5 and WUSA Channel 9.
“Small business people are being hammered in the state of Maryland today and you know it,” Ehrlich said. “It’s the most hostile regulatory, tort, and tax environment in this country.”
O’Malley said the state is doing just fine.
“We are friendly to business,” he said. “We are a strong region.”
O’Malley said Ehrlich had an easier four years because he missed the national recession, having served from 2002 to 2006. He touted the 33,000 new jobs created in Maryland since January.
If elected, Ehrlich said he would pass a”small business bill of rights” that would provide a timeline for state agencies to give business owners “consistent answers to their questions about state law.”
O’Malley touted pro-business measures he has already passed, including a $5,000 tax credit to businesses for every unemployed Marylander they hire and tax incentives for biotechnology companies.
Ehrlich dodged a question of how he would fund a roughly $700 million planned sales tax cut, and instead attacked O’Malley for implementing the 2007 tax increase in the first place.
“We’re the flyover state for corporate headquarters,” he said. “We’ve become a tax Hell for business folks and Virginia has taken advantage of it.”
Ehrlich also accused O’Malley of building the state budget around federal infusions of stimulus money.
“I guess your idea of getting the budget corrected is simply to ask the federal government for more dollars,” he said, “and by the way, the spigot is stopping Nov. 2.”
But O’Malley said he didn’t recall Ehrlich sending away federal money when he was in office.
Addressing the tax issue, O’Malley said Ehrlich’s “credibility on this issue [of taxes] is nonexistent.” He said Ehrlich made a promise not to raise taxes in 2002, but then raised property taxes and a number of other fees.
“I think we have focused on the problem,” Ehrlich shot back. “The governor doesn’t understand the fundamentals of state government.” To this, the audience erupted: some booing, others clapping and cheering.
Ehrlich argued that the governor doesn’t directly set the property tax and differentiated fees from taxes.
The candidates also sparred on mass transit, immigration laws, education funding and gay marriage.
