ANNAPOLIS — Gov. Martin O’Malley on Thursday announced the most expensive rental housing program for Maryland in two decades, the latest big-spending proposal from a governor with higher political ambitions in a state with financial woes. The $15 million housing initiative comes after O’Malley’s proposal of near-record funding for school construction. An announcement on additional spending for state parks is planned for Friday.
Facing a $1.1 billion shortfall, Maryland doesn’t have the money to fund the type of legislative lineup that O’Malley would like to showcase to observers across the national landscape.
Recommended Stories
| Ethics probe of Currie begins |
| An ethics investigation of state Sen. Ulysses S. Currie began, as lawmakers discussed allegations that the longtime senator used his connections in the State House to help those paying him consulting fees. |
| The proceedings were closed to the public, however, as the Joint Ethics Committee requires nine of the panel’s 12 lawmakers — or the lawmaker facing sanctions — to open the meeting to the public. |
| Currie was stripped of his chairmanship of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee when he was indicted for failing to reveal his work for Shoppers Food Warehouse, a group that paid him nearly a quarter of a million dollars. |
| Watchdog groups are pressing for the hearings to be made public. |
A surge in infrastructure funding, mostly for schools and transportation, would play well with O’Malley’s Democratic base. But to pay for the measures, O’Malley is banking that he will be able to move a series of tax increases — from gasoline to sewer systems and potentially a sales tax he unexpectedly floated this week — through a Democratic-controlled legislature that remains wary of additional taxes in a down economy.
John Porter, spokesman for the Maryland Republican Party, accused O’Malley of “jamming a liberal agenda though the General Assembly and down the throats of Marylanders.”
“Gov. O’Malley has failed to grasp the fundamental reality that has played out on the federal level in the last few years,” he said. “That reality is you can’t spend more than you take in, and the government can’t spend its way out of a recession.”
As O’Malley promoted Maryland’s fourth consecutive top ranking for public education from the publication Education Week, he argued that government-backed ventures would help lead Maryland back from punishing economic times.
Or as he put it on his Twitter account: “You have to have the guts to make the cuts and the foresight to make the investments.”
But paying for those investments is a prickly issue.
Upon hearing O’Malley float a 7 percent sales tax, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., a fellow Democrat, dismissed the idea as political posturing.
After massive fallout from the sales-tax comment, O’Malley said he was merely floating an idea that would give financial flexibility. The moment mirrored last year’s session, when O’Malley said he would sign off on tax increases if passed by the General Assembly — but did not propose them on his own.
To achieve his agenda this time, the governor will need to stand behind any tax increases needed to fund the measures, according to members of his own party.
“He better be real careful,” said one Democratic lawmaker, who didn’t want to openly question the governor’s strategy. “He can’t leave us hanging in the wind. He can propose all these amazing ideas, but ultimately, we’re the ones who have to figure out how to pay for them.”
