For the past year, Marylanders have been living in a state of rhetorical emergency.
Gov. Martin O?Malley told us repeatedly we needed new taxes. Now. Legislators could not wait to the regular session, which began earlier this month, because the “cost of waiting was too high.” He did not tell us why. The budget was balanced through the end of the year. But he released apocalyptic forecasts about how much county budgets, education and essential services would be cut without panic approval of new taxes.
The need was not so great that he felt compelled to release the budget in time for the special session, however, as required by our state constitution. The scare tactics worked.
He won, without ever having to detail the horror he hinted was in store.
It turns out that none actually was. The $31.5 billion budget is bigger by a little more than the $1.4 billion emergency tax increase.
Soeven if none of those new taxes was passed, the budget would not have been cut.
This is an emergency? This is leadership? Cult leaders scare people into turning over their savings for a higher cause. Since when is that tactic considered a legitimate political tool?
O?Malley even boasted about “another year of record-high funding for public education.” This is nothing to brag about, as it is not at all clear that the $3.5 billion extra spent on public schools since 2003 through an unfunded mandate has improved learning, especially for the minority and low-income students it was specifically designed to help the most.
And he proposed $124.5 million to expand health care. That includes money to eventually add 100,000 people to the state?s Medicaid rolls ? which promises to dramatically increase costs in years to come without changing a system driving doctors out of the state because of regulatory and legal burdens. A recent report prepared by health care experts for Gov. O?Malley predicted a severe shortage of doctors in coming years if medical malpractice damages are not capped.
So we can all breathe a sigh of relief, sip our chamomile tea or hot chocolate and watch the snow falling outside with a sense of peace in our hearts that all is well in Annapolis. We avoided an emergency. Even if it was one that never existed.
Or we can stand up and speak out about the real emergency facing our state: leadership that lies to us to take from us.
Let us create a rhetorical emergency of our own.
