The O'Malley Bailout
National Review’s editorial on the particulars of President-elect Obama’s stimulus plan is a must read. One paragraph sticks out, as it pertains to Maryland.
The plan would also provide a massive bailout for states that indulged in politically popular but unaffordable spending during the boom, only to find themselves overcommitted on Medicaid and other fronts. If one looks, one notices that the states in the most trouble and the states with most liberal governments form an overlapping group. Some Republican Governors like Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Rick Perry of Texas have argued that taxpayers from more prudent states shouldn’t be forced to pay for other states’ welfare programs. They are absolutely right.
Maryland and Governor O’Malley fit that description in the APB.
Yes my radio friend Bob Ehrlich spent during the boom time, maybe a bit too much for some of us. For the record though he fixed the Glendenning fiscal mess. But, Martin O’Malley increased taxes and spending in the face of the gathering storm—a fiscally irresponsible thing to do—which led us to the current and projected future deficits.
O’Malley and Annapolis Democrats may have no need to worry though as President Obama wants to grant them a get out of jail free card. American taxpayers of course, will be posting bail.
2 comments:
Mark - Just like Gov. Ehrlich "forgot" that he assented to a slots plan involving a constitutional amemdment specifying locations in September 2004 that was remarkably similar to the plan recently approved by voters over his opposition, perhaps you and he need a reminder that Maryland reaped half a billion dollars in federal bailout money under President Bush-43's famous tax cut package of May 2003.
The package was sweetened with a $20 billion federal bailout to state & local governments. Smaller recession, smaller bailout, but the point is crystal clear.
Gov. Ehrlich surely wasn't complaining then, when it helped him, to paraphrase your words, fix the Glendenning fiscal mess. Did you label that bailout a "get out of jail free card?" Were Republican Governors turning away their states' share?
You have no problem attributing Gov. Ehlrich's challenges to his predecessor, yet each time I expose the Ehrlich origin of a challenge Gov. O'Malley faces, a pallet of bricks fly through my window.
Let me be the first to make this prediction: At the first sign of economic recovery under the Obama administration, conservatives will be burning sacrifices at the altar of Ronald Reagan, faithful that his legacy delivered us from this darkest storm.
- Steve Lebowitz
what you're doing is the equivalent of saying that the common cold is a virus and AIDS is a virus ergo what helped one will help the other.
I know you're really fond of skill in self-beclowning as a competitive sport, but this is should have embarrassed even you.
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