Many citizens in oil-rich countries rue the natural resource that brings them so much wealth. Oil traps them in an economy with no alternatives in good times and bad.
The government is that way for Maryland ? except no one seems to think it?s a problem. We should worry. It means that if government spending withers, so will the Maryland economy.
The latest Census figures show the federal government bestowed Maryland with the third-highest amount of money per-person (not counting D.C.) in 2005 ? $11,936. Only citizens in Alaska and Virginia received more on a per person basis. Residents of Montgomery and Prince George?s counties and Baltimore City area raked in the vast majority of the $67 billion given to the state in grants, salaries, contracts, retirement payments and procurement. Baltimore and Anne Arundel Counties lured about 17 percent of the money distributed in the state.
Those dollars are part of the reason Maryland earned the title for highest median income in 2006. That achievement follows an 80 percent increase in federal dollars from 1996 to 2005.
Those numbers may look fantastic, but in the early 1990s Maryland lost more than twice the percentage of jobs as other states during a national recession because it particularly affected government, the defense industry and financial institutions. Maryland remains vulnerable in those areas since it receives the fourth-highest amount of Department of Defense dollars in the country and draws the fifth-highest percent of federal dollars for salaries despite its small population.
That means weare a state of Wesley Mouches. Mouch is the lobbyist in Ayn Rand?s “Atlas Shrugged” who eventually gains the power to direct government funds wherever he wishes regardless of merit. Rand uses him to illustrate her view that government bureaucrats would never have the same positions of power in the private sector. But he also shows that funding is capricious.
That?s why it?s so important for the state government to foster an attractive business climate so that those who will support us when government funds dry up choose to come and stay in Maryland. Raising sales and income taxes ? as the governor has proposed ? do not foster the “creative destruction” so necessary to healthy economies.
Our elected officials need to look beyond Maryland?s prowess in raking in federal dollars and make the state friendly to business of all stripes. It is the best guarantee that Maryland will continue to thrive regardless of federal dollars.
