Governor Martin O'Malley Delivers Address on Fiscal Responsibility [
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WASHINGTON, DC (July 31, 2008) – Governor Martin O’Malley delivered a major address before the Center for American Progress today, focusing on the restoration of fiscal responsibility in Maryland. As states work to balance their budgets in the midst of a rising federal deficit, a faltering national economy and mortgage crisis, Governor O’Malley addressed how to restore fiscal responsibility while making critical investments in our shared priorities, like public education, infrastructure, energy and affordable, quality health care.
“Many States have had to deal with budget shortfalls by carving into priorities like public safety, public education and healthcare,” said Governor O’Malley. “None of the options are popular, but while some of these choices pull us backwards, other choices can and will move us forward – even in the toughest of times.”
Governor O’Malley, facing an inherited $1.7 billion structural deficit upon taking office, worked with leaders in the General Assembly to virtually close the budget shortfall through a series of reforms, including nearly $1.8 billion in spending cuts and reductions, the elimination of over 700 State positions, and the implementation of a progressive tax structure that allows 95% of Marylanders to pay the same or less in income taxes as they did in the prior year.
“Nothing that we accomplished in the three week Special Session was easy. But, throughout the difficult consensus-forging work, we continued to proclaim the goals that unite us: to strengthen and grow our middle class, and family owned businesses and farms; to improve public safety and public education in every region of our State; and to expand opportunity – the opportunity to learn and earn, the opportunity to enjoy the health of the people we love and the environment we love to more people rather than fewer.”
The Governor continued. “We eliminated government positions and implemented performance based management practices that helped eliminate nearly $20 million in overtime costs, and saved our State more than $20 million in Medicaid fraud recoveries. We closed the arcane, violent House of Corrections, which not only turned out to be the right thing to do morally, it also saved taxpayers $10 million. We replaced well-intentioned funding indexes that had fueled unsustainable spending in the past and threatened to accelerate spending in the immediate future. And we passed a package of legislation that modernized our tax code while lowering the income tax rate for 90 percent of Marylanders, and increasing the State Earned Income Tax Credit for hard-working families and our aspiring middle class.”
“When faced with a crippling structural deficit, we asked our neighbors in Maryland to embrace, once again, the politics of posterity. The politics which embraces the duty we have, not only to our neighbors, but to the next generation,” Governor O’Malley said. “The politics that believes tomorrow can be better than today, and that each of us has a personal freedom and moral responsibility, by our own actions and by our own investments, to make it so. Just as our parents and grandparents built our roads, our schools, and our hospitals with their blood, their sweat, their tears, and yes, with their hard earned dollars, we asked our fellow Marylanders to join us in choosing a better future for our own posterity.”
Governor O’Malley discussed the circumstances surrounding the inherited $1.7 billion structural deficit as context for the reforms the O’Malley-Brown Administration implemented to correct it.
“While a slowing economy exacerbated our circumstances, the primary cause was of our own making. In a flash of bi-partisan irresponsibility we had locked in nearly two billion dollars in increased expenditures, primarily in public education, while at the same time cutting income taxes for millionaires and everyone else by a billion dollars. And despite the $3 billion in backhanded stealthy property tax increases, fee and toll increases, and 40 percent increases in college tuition of our predecessor, the chickens of our bad math were coming home to roost. In the words of the great Abraham Lincoln, we could no longer ‘escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.’”
Outlining the strong, sustainable fiscal environment in which these reforms now place the State of Maryland, Governor O’Malley recognized the challenge that all states face in difficult economic times and the opportunities for progress fiscal responsibility can present.
“By taking these actions we were able to address a huge structural deficit that was years in the making. Two weeks ago the rating agencies affirmed Maryland’s Triple A Bond Rating, meaning that we’re still one of only seven states to hold the highest rating of credit worthiness from all three major bond agencies. But the true value of restoring fiscal responsibility is found in the progress that we are now able to make for the common good and stronger future that all of us would prefer.”
Former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta founded the Center for American Progress, the think tank that hosted Governor O’Malley for his address today, in 2003. The Center’s experts cover a wide range of issue areas, and often work across disciplines to tackle complex, interrelated issues such as national security, energy, and climate change. The Center is designed to shape national debate through dialogue with leaders, thinkers, and citizens, affecting positive change and developing a position of long-term leadership for America.
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