Republican members of the Maryland Senate on Tuesday unanimously elected Sen. Allan Kittleman as minority leader and Sen. Nancy Jacobs as minority whip, and the new leaders had a message for Gov. Martin O’Malley about the current budget problems: We told you so.
Republicans in the Senate the past year offered proposals to balance the budget without raising taxes and “had those words been heeded back [then], we wouldn’t be in the difficult situation as we are right now,” said Kittleman, who represents parts of Howard and Carroll counties.
Instead, Jacobs, who represents Harford and Cecil counties, noted that O’Malley and Democrats in the General Assembly voted to increase taxes last year in order to cure a structural deficit. But on top of the tax increases, during the 2007 special session, they added $200 million in spending “at a time when we could least afford the spending,” Jacobs said.
“We’re going to do everything we can to reduce government spending,” Jacobs said.
Kittleman had been minority whip and succeeds Sen. David Brinkley, Frederick-Carroll, who resigned the post. Kittleman was appointed to the Senate four years ago after the death of his father, Sen. Robert Kittleman, who had also been the House Republican leader. Allan Kittleman had been elected twice to the Howard County Council.
Jacobs is in her third term in the Senate after serving one term in the House.
She said the Republican caucus would continue to represent the 46 percent of Marylanders who voted for Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich in 2006 and “feel underrepresented.” “Part of our goal is to have all the voices of Marylanders heard,” Jacobs said.
O’Malley put out a newsletter on Tuesday that continued to tout reductions in spending, and said the state was in better fiscal shape than other states experiencing revenue declines due to the economic downturn.
But the Republicans said O’Malley made the situation worse. “Our problem is an insatiable appetite to spend,” Kittleman said. “Even as they were taxing us to fix our problem, they still added additional spending.”
