20070816 News Clips

News Clips

August 16, 2007

STATE NEWS

GOP offers fix for budget
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070816/METRO/108160056/1004
Maryland House Republicans yesterday announced a budget proposal to address the state's $1.5 billion budget deficit that calls for legalizing slot machines and cutting the rate of growth in spending instead of increasing taxes.
Delegate Anthony J. O'Donnell, the House minority leader, described the proposal as "a budget that has a slower growth rate but continues to fund the priorities of the citizens of Maryland." The plan would limit spending growth to 3.5 percent in the 2009 budget, compared to what Republicans described as a projected "baseline" budget increase o f 8.5 percent.
Delegate Christopher B. Shank, the House's second-highest ranking Republican, said Marylanders already bear a high tax burden compared with taxpayers in other states and can "ill afford to increase that tax burden."
"We, ladies and gentlemen, do not have a revenue problem in the state," said Mr. Shank, Washington County Republican. "We have a spending problem."Mr. O'Donnell said Republicans have gone through an exhaustive process to plan out the details.
"If they decide to bring us more into the policy discussions, we will of course have that discussion," he said.
The 15,000 slot machines would be split among six venues and would generate roughly $600 million in upfront license proceeds, according to the proposal. Though Republicans are outnumbered in the House, Mr. O'Donnell said the party wants to offer an alternative, instead of sitting back and merely lobbing "rhetorical bombs."

Comptroller Challenges Report on Gambling
O'Malley Aide Not 'Objective'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/15/AR2007081502181.html
Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot clashed openly yesterday with Gov. Martin O'Malley, a fellow Democrat, criticizing a report on slot machines by a senior O'Malley administration official as propaganda for the nation's gambling industry. Franchot, speaking at a news conference in Salisbury, said he was "very disappointed" by a report released Tuesday by Thomas E. Perez, O'Malley's secretary of the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. "The secretary had an opportunity to take an objective, independent look at an issue that has paralyzed our state for far too many years," Franchot, an op ponent of legalizing slot machines, said in prepared remarks distributed by his staff after the event. "Rather than bringing a fresh perspective to this debate, the secretary simply reheated the talking points of the national gambling industry."

O'Malley's orders skirt Assembly
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070816/METRO/108160049/1004/metro
Gov. Martin O'Malley quietly signed two executive orders last week to unionize day care and in-home health care providers, after the General Assembly rejected similar legislation. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, signed the orders just before leaving for a weeklong vacation but made no official announcement except to list the orders on the administration Web site, which drew criticism from Republican lawmakers. Republican lawmakers said Mr. O'Malley's a ction was an "end-run" around the General Assembly. "I think people thought maybe, because he was on vacation, we wouldn't be checking on things," said Senate Minority Whip Allan H. Kittleman, a Carroll and Howard counties Republican. He also serves on the Senate committee that rejected the child care worker bill in the past two years.

Protesters demand greenhouse gas cut
State House rally presses O'Malley for bold steps to reach 80% reduction by 2050
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-warming0815,0,7830026.story
About 60 global warming protesters raised an oversized hourglass outside the State House in Annapolis Wednesday, telling Gov. Martin O'Malley that "the time to commit is now" to sweeping cuts in carbon dioxide pollution. Doing nothing is no lon ger an option," state Del. Kumar P. Barve, the House Democratic leader, told the sign-waving group in the sweltering heat. "Every major reform that has ever happened in American history has happened first at the state level and then percolated up to the federal level." The Governor's Climate Change Commission, led by state Environment Secretary Shari T. Wilson, held its third meeting Wednesday. The panel plans to issue a report by Nov. 1 on how Maryland might further reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. California, New Jersey and Hawaii have passed laws aimed at a 20 percent cut in such emissions by 2020.

More schools lag on standards
Slight performance drop may be tied to more demanding goals
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/ bal-md.schools16aug16001523,0,2237523.story?coll=bal_tab02_layout
The number of Maryland elementary and middle schools on the state's list of poor performers grew slightly last year -- in part, officials said, because the standards are getting tougher every year.
Statewide, 176 schools are on the list -- including more than 60 in Baltimore City and, for the first time, two in Howard County. A school gets the "needs improvement" label for failing to meet federal standards two years in a row.Nine more schools made the list this time, or 16 percent of schools overall. Maryland State School Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick played down the increase, saying it masks the fact that a larger number of children are passing reading and math tests required by federal law. "Scores of our schools are making the grade, even as performance goals move up another notch," she said in a statement.

Contractors told they cannot hire illegal immigrants
http://www.examiner.com/a-883692~Contractors_told_they_cannot_hire_illegal_immigrants.html
Contractors working for the Anne Arundel County government must sign affidavits saying they will not hire illegal immigrants - or face losing their jobs. "During the budget cycle, I eliminated monies for groups providing assistance to illegal immigrants ... and this is consistent with that philosophy," said County Executive John R. Leopold, who issued the edict in an executive order Tuesday afternoon.
Federal law prohibits the hiring of illegal immigrants, and Leopold's order takes it a step further by requiring certified written statements, county attorney Jonathan Hodgson said. "This is a means of making it very clear what the county position is," Leopold said.

EDITORIALS/OP-EDS

'Rough patch' hardly suffices
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.rodricks16aug16001523,0,2166159.column
Martin O'Malley, who once had Baltimore fully in his windshield and not the rear-view mirror, called it a "rough patch." Nearly 200 homicides in the first eight months of 2007, putting Baltimore on a pace to record more than 300 killings for the first time since the bloody 1990s, and O'Malley plays this down as a "rough patch." O'Malley stood next to Sheila Dixon on Monday and endorsed her continuation as mayor, and oh-well about the spike in homicides. That's no reason for voters to toss Dixon. It's a temporary condition, a little bump in the road, a few potholes on the way to a better day. Just a "rough patch ." The endorsement of Dixon was more important - some kind of IOU, which demonstrates how hollow politics is, and especially so in a city and state dominated by one party.
Neither O'Malley nor Kweisi Mfume was about to talk homicides while endorsing Dixon because they can't argue with the numbers: Violence and homicides have increased during her watch.

Consensus time: Let the games begin
http://www.examiner.com/a-883718~Consensus_time__Let_the_games_begin.html
Gov. Martin O'Malley and House Republicans finally found common ground - slot machines. The GOP's proposal to balance the 2009 budget without tax hikes "was not easy to arrive at," House Minority Leader Anthony O'Donnell said. "We have a diversity of opinion" about slots and other issues.
Del. Ron George, an Anne Arundel County Republican who does not favor slots , said he served on the committee which came up with the GOP slots proposal because "we have to prepare our own version of it," rather than accept a Democratic version.

Slots spell cha-ching for Maryland treasury
http://www.examiner.com/a-883689~Slots_spell_cha_ching_for_Maryland_treasury.html
The only downside to legalizing slots is that it gives the government more money to squander. But we can think of no other objection to them, as a state report released Tuesday makes clear. Marylanders playing them in West Virginia and Delaware sent $150 million to those states' treasuries in 2006. No statistics are yet available for Pennsylvania, which started to allow them last November. With a $1.5 billion deficit, no excuse exists to ship revenue to our neighbors.
Not allowing slots in Maryland does not prevent its residents from playing them, as the statistics show. It only means that other states collect the taxes from their entertainment choices.
Legalizing slots will n ot fix the budget crisis. But those who choose to waste their money playing them should at least benefit Maryland. By dedicating all funds from them to eliminating the deficit, they could help pave the way to lower taxes. Legislators must pass them at the first opportunity in the next session.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Why do Democrats look to allow illegals in so quickly?
http://www.somdnews.com/stories/081507/reclet150740_32110.shtml
don't read or hear anyone asking the question I'm about to ask, so I might as well do it: Why are the Democrats so anxious to create a haven in America for illegal aliens?
Mind you, there are many Republicans who stand alongside them. Businesses large and small which typically vote Republican are looking for a source of cheap, hard-working labor. Th ere are a number of Democrats who are against streamlining the path to citizenship for illegal aliens because of their impact on the low end of the labor workforce, specifically the downward pressure they exert on wages and benefits.Here in Maryland, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and the General Assembly are lying in wait to extend citizen benefits to illegal aliens, specifically the issuance of state driver's licenses and in-state tuition benefits to the children of illegal aliens.
Both of these proposed pieces of legislation, if passed, would be a clarion call to illegal aliens that Maryland is the place to be. Don't be intimidated by your elected officials when it comes to tough questions like this. Remember that you hired them and you can fire them, and that makes you the boss.

NATIONAL NEWS

Maryland children on the line in Washington debate
http://www.examiner.com/a-883705~Maryland_children_on_the_line_in_Washington_debate.html
Health care coverage for 136,000 Maryland children hangs in the balance as politicians in D.C. struggle to hammer out a new expanded version of a children's health care bill. The State Children's Health Insurance Program, initially passed by Congress in 1997, is set to expire Sept. 30. "This bill provides health insurance to the children of many of America's working families," said U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who supports the renewal and expansion of the bill. "I helped create SCHIP, and I have been fighting ever since to expand coverage and increase payment to states."
Despite the success of SCHIP, 128,000 Maryland children remain without any form of health care, according to a report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropic foundation associated with health and health care that supports the new legislation.