Democrats in the House of Delegates easily beat back Republican attempts to cut Gov. Martin O?Malley?s proposed spending increases in the budget for fiscal 2008.
The vote was 29-110. No Democrats voted for reduced spending, and even seven Republican lawmakers defected from the party line, because the bill cut all of a $567 million increase in education aid.
Republican leader Anthony O?Donnell, of Calvert, offered an amendment that would have reduced the budget $597 million, but he called it unfair to call these “cuts” since the budget would still grow by $200 million, 1.5 percent more than last year. “There are not cuts in this proposal,” and his version of the budget “maintains historically high levels of funding,” O?Donnell said.
Without the reduced spending in the face of large deficits, O?Donnell said, “the working families of Maryland” are facing “massive tax increases” next year.
“We?re gonna clobber them,” he said, and “local governments will get clobbered as well.”
But Democrats said schools and local governments were taking the principal hit in the Republican plan. Almost all of the reduced spending came out of the Thornton aid to local school systems.
“Every school system in the state will suffer that reduction,” said Del. John Bohanan, D-St. Mary?s, chairman of the education appropriations subcommittee.
Appropriations Committee Chairman Norman Conway, D-Wicomico, acknowledged the legislature “made some mistakes” when it passed the Thornton aid.
“What we did not do at the time was put adequate funding” in the budget for the increased aid, he said.
Slicing Thornton aid wasthe “deal-breaker” for Del. Barry Glassman, R-Harford, one of seven Republicans who voted against reducing the increases.
“Even when we were $1 billion in the hole” in Gov. Robert Ehrlich?s first year, “we kept our commitment on Thornton,” Glassman said. “I thought it was premature to run up the white flag on Thornton.”
Cutting education aid also was the problem for Del. Donald Elliott, R-Carroll.
“We?re just going to be shifting the cost back to the locals,” who have done their budgets and promised teacher salary increases.
Delaying the increased aid doesn?t solve the revenue problems, Elliott said.
