Washington Post and Baltimore Sun Repeat O'Malley Budget Cuts Deception
Since ascending to the head of the Democratic Governor’s Association last year, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley has been fashioning a national profile for himself as a responsible fiscal steward of Maryland’s finances. The Washington Post and Baltimore Sun are dutifully helping O’Malley perpetuate that fiction.
O’Malley released his fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget last month, which includes, among other taxes, an income tax hike for 20 percent of taxpayers to close a $1 billion structural deficit.
Echoing Governor O’Malley’s claim of record budget cuts, ($7.5 billion over six years), the Washington Post wrote:
Democratic leaders in the General Assembly offered initial support for the governor’s budget, calling his push for new revenue the embodiment of what O’Malley and other Democratic leaders nationwide have labeled a “balanced approach” to government spending after nearly a half-decade of budget cutting during the downturn…
What cuts? What balance? The Post failed to mention that Maryland’s budget is $6.4 billion (21 percent) larger today, than O’Malley’s first budget in 2008. According to a report from the National Association of State Budget Officers O’Malley’s FY 2012 general fund budget increased spending by 11.4 percent, the fourth largest increase in the nation. Nor did the Post mention that O’Malley raised taxes by $3.6 billion over his first term according to a report from Maryland’s non-partisan Department of Legislative Services.
The Baltimore Sun similarly recited O’Malley’s budget cut claims without any context the real numbers in its coverage of his recent state of the state address to the legislature:
But he [O’Malley] said that the spending reductions his administration has made over the last four years, in addition to $800 million in his proposed budget, have left "fewer options for responsible budget-cutting."
However, buried in O’Malley’s own budget book (pp. 94-97), are two tables, which show a $1.6 billion increase in spending in FY 2013 over FY 2012. O’Malley’s 2012 budget spent $34.2 billion, and his proposed budget spends $35.8 billion.
It appears that the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun’s coverage of Maryland’s fiscal issues is as unbalanced as the state’s budget.
- Mark Newgent's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
My son went to school there
Submitted by NJRightWinger12 on Sun, 02/26/2012 - 3:52pm.
And he told me all the time about what this losers been doing to this once-proud state! And he probably is gearing up for a future run for the presidency, after these Hitler youths finish their terms, right, O'Bozo & Biteme?
O'Bozo the proper title
Submitted by oldfart on Sun, 02/26/2012 - 5:07pm.
This idiot totally screwed up Baltimore now he is doing the same to the entire state of Maryland.
I guess the residents of Maryland should be happy that the States are not allowed to print their own money.
Traitorous behavior
Submitted by km2002 on Mon, 02/27/2012 - 1:28am.
I've always said that commanding a bar band was Martin O'Malley's first best destiny; anything else is a waste of material. Not quite six years ago he turned a $2 billion budget surplus into a $2 billion deficit overnight using only words, thereby to justify raising the state sales tax by an additional 20 percent. His answer to everything budgetary is tax, tax, tax, so as to try to buy our votes by spending, spending, spending. Unfortunately, my fellow Marylanders are politically stupid and inept and fall for this stuff every time; Robert Ehrlich only won his one term in office because the Dems put up a thoroughly reprehensible and totally unpalatable candidate in Kathleen Townsend. And Marty has, of course, taken his photogenic face and glib smile to places it should never have gone; witness his selling out of his purported faith to the radical homosexual agenda. This man deserves to be run out of town on a rail. It's a pity we haven't found the formula to put him back in control of the one thing he did well, his Irish bar band.
It doesn't matter, O'Malley is blessed...
Submitted by neutron on Mon, 02/27/2012 - 1:32am.
(1) Both sides of O'Malley's family are heavily connected Liberals in a state with 2.3 registered Dems for every registered Rep.
(2) When he was Mayor of Bal'more, they cooked the books to make crime disappear from inside the city limits; when he matriculated to Governor, suddenly the Bal'more crime stats were back to the (deplorable) normal.
(3) In MD, he stood aside while Katheryn Kennedy Towson (another doubly-connected Lib) got the "it's her turn" at the Governorship. For that, he earned the "respect" of the party.
(4) O'Malley supported Obama over Hillary.
For these, and many other reasons, O'Malley is being groomed to be a Big Dem candidate for the White House, which will make his family connections and Back-Room Dems in MD proud of their favorite son.
The truth is that he is a bigger political phony than Richard Nixon. There are lots of skeletons hidden (and some not so hidden) in his closet.
From the state of MD, the fix is being rigged for O'Malley to be the next Dem running after Obama, unless Cuomo wants to go before him, then O'Malley will wait for his turn.
O'Malley
Submitted by rusino on Mon, 02/27/2012 - 9:16am.
I live in Maryland. Martin O'Malley runs only second on my list of contemptible,extreme, radical, liberal, progressive, Democrats. Obama is first.
Hey there...
Submitted by LastKnownOne on Mon, 02/27/2012 - 10:11am.
I lived here all my life(44yrs) and I must agree.
Gov. O'Malley
Submitted by John21 on Mon, 02/27/2012 - 9:23am.
I have lived in Maryland for the last 15 years and we have had some poor choices in the past.
Mr. O'Malley is easily the greatest of our errors, since he has been in Annapolis (capital) he has been a miserable failure. Maryland’s infrastructure has been on a death spiral since his election. Business startups are pitiful because of his over regulations and large tax hikes. People are leaving the state in larger numbers than any time in the past. He is a devote supporter of the Obama administration and is using some of his many liberal connections to try and become known nationwide. Most of his policies and spending habits are just as bad (if not worse) then his hero in the White House with the same results, failure on a monumental scale. He is now proposing another massive tax increase to cover his many failed policies, and like his hero blames everyone but himself.
The skeletons that are his closet is larger than the number of people under the Obama bus. Unfortunately the Kool-Aide drinkers from Montgomery and the plantation Democrats in Prince George County will continue to allow this corruption because they do not know any better.
Don't forget
Submitted by LastKnownOne on Mon, 02/27/2012 - 10:20am.
Don't forget Baltimore city residents catapulted him into office too. I lived here my entire life(44yrs). I loved when the Republicans in our Maryland Congress held up signs calling him a TAXAHOLIC!
All 44yrs. of my life, the sales tax was 5%. He gets in office and raises it to 6%, 7% for entertainment facilities, 9% for alcohol. Now I refuse to use the newly built ICC because it is a toll road. He used up ALL of the highway funds accumulated over countless years and borrowed more to finish it, now he needs more money! Hey, let's rasie taxes, gasoline taxes, soda taxes, double and triple the bridge and tunnels tolls. Woohoo. This guy can't go soon enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!