HCPOA NEWS
Rocky road ahead for state with more cuts on the horizon
Dec 18, 2008 (11:12:07)
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Woe is Martin O'Malley.
The governor didn't sign on to cut billions in state spending, although he conceded Tuesday he didn't take the job, because "it would be easy."
It won't be.
Just a year ago, he pushed through a massive $1.3 billion tax increase and cured a "structural deficit" of about the same size, while increasing spending on health care, education, school construction and the Chesapeake Bay.
He toured the state for months, touting those spending increases and contrasting them to the reductions under Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich Jr., the man he beat in 2006.
There were some warnings of recession in 2007 -- Comptroller Peter Franchot raised concerns then -- but no one knew a national recession would officially begin just weeks after the tax increases were passed.
On Tuesday night, the state Spending Affordability Committee debated whether to allow the state budget to grow by 0.7 percent next year or not at all. Either figure would have been the lowest increase the panel, made up mostly of Democratic lawmakers had set in the 25 years of its existence.
House Majority Leader Kumar Barve said the debate was really about whether they should "sever our arm either below the elbow or above the elbow."
"Clearly, we are making ourselves do deep, deep cuts in spending," Barve said.
It said something about the disconnect between what the state spends and what it takes in that three hours before the revenue board forecast that state tax receipts would go up only 0.5 percent, slightly less than the amount of spending growth the legislators were going to sanction.
"It sends the wrong message to the citizens of the state," said Senate Republican leader Allan Kittleman, who wanted no growth.
Senate Majority Leader Ed Kasemeyer, Kittleman's Howard County colleague, said, "I'd be amazed if we're going to be able to stay at those numbers."
O'Malley is hoping that the revenue picture will brighten in March, when the revenue board meets again, and "that the budget as submitted is not the one that is ultimately passed." He is pegging his hopes on at least $1 billion in new federal aid for Maryland in a stimulus package he and other governors would like to see passed in the early days of the Obama administration.
"I don't think March is going to be any better," said Bobby Neall, one of the few citizen members of the Spending Affordability Committee. Neall is a budget hawk who served as a delegate, senator and as Anne Arundel County executive in the steep recession of 1991.
"I wasn't in the backroom when the calibration was done," Neall told his colleagues. "I've seen this movie before."
"A lot of people stay in denial" about the steps that need to be taken, Neall said. He thought the committee should peg the spending figure at one dollar less than the current budget, then everybody, including Joe the Plumber, would understand the dire straits.
"I don't think we'll be able to afford" any increase in state spending at all, Neall said, especially with increases in pension costs and debt service.
"We're only going to spend the money we have," Barve said.
By Len Lazarick
Examiner Staff Writer 12/18/08
llazarick@baltimoreexaminer.com
