I?m different than Ehrlich, O?Malley keeps telling us. That guy brazenly plastered his photo all over state tourism ads. I just used a little bitty “official” photo on postcards, billboards and newspaper ads. I did it in the name of One Maryland! To help all those poor people losing their homes! Can?t you tell the difference?
No. Not really, governor. Politicians have been using taxpayer dollars to promote themselves in official messages since time immemorial. To think the size of your photo in ads should distinguish the latest iteration of this practice from your predecessor?s is akin to saying only Democrats can define public service messages.
We are not dumb. We can tellan official mailing from a commercial one even if it does not contain your photo or that of Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown. We can also distinguish an official commercial from a business one. We do not need to hear your voice. We pay tickets and taxes and respond to the census all without needing the photos of mayors and comptrollers and presidents deeming them government-issued.
So don?t tell us that you kept your campaign promise not to promote yourself and that former Gov. Robert Ehrlich “used them entirely to promote his image and his name and his face. … I felt that that was wrong and I said for my part that if I were elected governor, I would not do that. And I have not done that.”
You did do that. So did Ehrlich. Maybe not to the same degree. But get off your moral high horse.
Taxpayers have already spent $320,000 for this campaign to stop foreclosures. We would suggest creating policies that make them less likely to happen in the first place, like repealing the slate of new taxes passed in the recent legislative sessions to make it easier for everyone to pay their bills. We would also suggest enforcing mortgage company regulations already on the books that the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation ignored during the height of the lending heyday. We know many of their failures did not happen on your watch, but new laws are not always the best solution. Especially when they punish the vast majority of people who managed their money responsibly and prevent those waiting to buy a house from being able to afford them.
The ads promoting the latest state-funded rescues may help a few people. Making Maryland more hospitable to economic growth and savings will help everyone.
