Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley brushed off accusations that he is to blame for the political gridlock that crippled the General Assembly’s budget negotiations this week, saying most of the fault sits squarely on the shoulders of a fellow Democrat, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr.
In a bid to expand gambling in Maryland, Miller held hostage a budget plan that would have avoided more than $500 million in spending cuts by increasing state income taxes and shifting some teacher pension costs to counties, among other revenue-raising proposals, O’Malley said.
“Seemingly the Senate was not capable of passing the compromise and consensus budget without also passing gambling,” O’Malley said Thursday on WTOP radio.
In a round of radio interviews, O’Malley blamed Miller for “crowding out” debate on the governor’s proposals to raise the gas tax to pay for road projects.
“At the [Senate] president’s prerogative, [discussion on gambling measures] crowded out any more substantive discussions on what to do about transportation [revenues],” O’Malley said.
Miller said lawmakers simply ran out of time in passing the revenue measures before their midnight deadline on Monday.
“If you don’t have the chutzpah or the nerve or the guts or the gumption to pass taxes, that’s what’s going to happen,” Miller said.
O’Malley needs to work to line up the votes needed to pass the proposed tax increases, Miller said. The legislature would then only need a few hours in a special session to approve them, he said.
“I’m certainly not a perfect leader,” O’Malley said on WAMU radio. “But lack of work has never been one of my problems.”
Democrats control the governor’s office and both chambers of the General Assembly, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t challenges, O’Malley said.
“It’s trickier when your own party’s in control,” he said. “We did some things to ourselves that the Republican caucus couldn’t do to us in the last five or six years.”
When asked explicitly whether he would call a special session, O’Malley said he would wait to see if there is a “clear consensus” among lawmakers to raise the income tax rate on residents earning $100,000 or more.
A special session would be a “simple process,” O’Malley explained. If everyone is willing to “put our egos aside,” he said, “we could come back for five minutes or come back in this afternoon.”
