The Premier blog of conservative and Republican politics and ideas in the Free State
named one of Maryland's best political blogs by the Washington Post
John Leopold was found guilty; Greg provides legal analysis and we discuss the potential circus that might ensue if the County Council has to fill the vacancy;
We talk Super Bowl;
And we talk about Fried Chicken; why Brian thinks Bojangles is the Best, and why Greg doesn't like it.
According to Politico
reporter Alexander Burns, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley wants to tell
“his story.”That is, O’Malley is
framing the narrative of his 2016 Democratic presidential primary run as the
story of his “results oriented” stewardship of the Free State.
Burns however, like too many in Maryland’s political press
corps, has fallen for the mythical Potemkin Village of “One Maryland,” created
by O’Malley’s spin machine.
For example, Burns uncritically repeats the O’Malley fiction
of “cutting billions in state spending.”In fact, Maryland’s budget has ballooned by nearly $9 billion, a 30
percent increase, since O’Malley first took office in 2007. Unfortunately, reporting O’Malley’s $9 billion
spending increase, as billions in spending cuts, is a
common journalistic malady for the state’s two papers of record The
Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post.
Burns writes:
In a speech earlier this month unveiling his 2014
budget, O’Malley explicitly contrasted Maryland’s approach with the state of
the federal government.“Even though we’ve been able to apply a balanced approach
here in Maryland, our national politics is still struggling with restoring this
balanced approach in our nation’s capital,” he said on Jan. 16, taking a whack
at “the hara kiri Congress down the street.”
Apparently increasing spending by $9 billion and taxes by $6
billion is the new definition of “balanced approach.”
Burns also obediently repeats O’Malley’s boasting of
Maryland public schools number one ranking in by Education Week.Yet, the crack Politico reporter omitted the
fact that the same Education Week report shows Maryland schools consistently
fail its poorest students.According to
Education Week Maryland ranks dead last in the 8th grade math
poverty gap.Nor did Burns report that a
large majority of Maryland high school graduates need
remedial Math and English instruction when they get to college.
The outlook on Maryland's AAA
rating is negative due to its indirect linkages to the weakened credit profile
of the US government. The negative outlook relates to Moody's August 2, 2011
decision to confirm the AAA government bond rating of the United States and
assign a negative outlook, and to our December 7 assessment of the state's
exposure to indirect linkages to the federal government. Moody's has determined
that issuers with indirect linkages, such as Maryland, have some combination of
economies that are highly dependent on federal employment and spending, a
significant healthcare presence in
their economies, have direct healthcare operations, or high levels of
short-term and puttable debt.
Moody’s
also noted the ticking time bomb of Maryland’s debt and pension
obligations. According to State Budget
Solutions, Maryland’s
debt is nearly $82 billion, and state pension and retiree healthcare
liabilities stand at $64
billion. Much of O’Malley’s budget
balancing came through swapping out cash in capital funds and replenishing it through
bond debt.
Burns tell us O’Malley wants to “tell his story,” but that story is fairy tale, and it is his job as a reporter to tell the real story, not play stenographer.
Delegate Justin Ready introduced a bill to stop the Maryland Department of Transportation from implementing a vehicle miles travelled tax as part of O'Malley's Greenhouse Gas Reduction Act
The collectivist claptrap in Obama's inaugural address.
And we'll talk Super Bowl with Matt Palmer, former Ravens beat writer for the Examiner and Press Box.
While the Maryland GOP ponders this trivia, the party and its "leaders" have remained silent about Gov. O'Malley's appointment of Democrat Darren Swain to the vacant district 24 delegate position.
Deadbeat Swain, who has a a long record of traffic offenses, one of which escalated into a circuit court criminal case, also seems to have a problem paying his bills. For example. Discover sued him for over $12,000 in 2008, and won a judgment and lien against him then, but the only record that he actually settled the claim is dated January 9, 2013, when he started actively seeking the delegate position.
Earlier, the Prince George's County Democratic Central Committee and various party leaders recommended Greg Hall for the position. Hall, involved in the murder of a 13 year old two decades ago, is a deadbeat dad and convicted gunslinging drug and gun thug. The Maryland and Prince George's GOP establishments were silent about that choice, and have remained silent about the hypocrisy of Democrats who support gun control legislation, while supporting a gun criminal for delegate.
The GOP was also silent before that, when recently ousted Delegate Tiffany Alston was convicted of crimes and booted from the General Assembly.
And in the last election, the GOP didn't even bother to run a candidate for delegate or senator in district 24.
At no time in the history of this sorry episode could I find any statement from the Republican party or any current party or elected GOP officials about Democratic misconduct, bad judgment, or hypocrisy. Nor did the party ever advance, either formally or informally any name of any suggested honest squeaky-clean person, either Republican or Democrat, for the position.
So, just what is important to our GOP folks in Annapolis? I'm inclined to conclude that trivia trumps rebuilding the party and Republican principles like limited government or protecting our rights.
If we really need a state sandwich, baloney might be more appropriate.
What great promise this interview had: the President and his reputed
life-long nemesis, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, together in an interview
for the first time.
Unfortunately, there was no serious journalism evident; it was a lovefest,
with very little interference from the usually excellent Mr. Kroft.
There was a hint of what was to come from the segment’s preamble, within
which Mr. Kroft sort of apologized for the fact that there were limits on
topics due to the fact that the White House permitted only 30 minutes for the
broadcast.
That doesn’t excuse the interviewer’s complete dereliction of inquisitorial
responsibility.
The president speaks of wars that he and Mrs. Clinton have ended and the
lack of terrorist attacks.
There was no probing of the ending
of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with the prospects of success being quite
questionable at best.The future status
of Iraq and Afghanistan?Maybe there was
too little time to ask about that.
After a fairly lengthy uninterrupted expression of mutual admiration,
Mrs. Clinton was to be questioned on Benghazi and the hearings at which she
testified now-famously (and aired in this segment): “We have 4 dead
Americans…what difference does it make? Was it because of a protest or because
4 people were out for a walk?”
She also testified that President Obama had said within 24 hours of the
attack that it was an “act of terrorism.”
Mr. Kroft never questioned Mrs. Clinton’s claim that it made no
difference if it was an act of terrorism.Finding out whether it was terrorists or 4 people “out for a walk” can
help you stop it in the future. It makes a not inconsequential difference as
to whether murders are performed by a terrorist group that is a future, systematic
threat, or whether it was committed by an ad
hoc crowd of common criminals.
And no serious journalist should leave unquestioned Mrs. Clinton’s claim
that President Obama called the attack an act of terrorism since he made that
statement with no reference to the attack
in Benghazi.Moreover, for 2 weeks following
the 9/11 attack, the Administration maintained that the attack was in response to
an anti-Muslim tape, including the President’s address to the United Nations 14
days later.
It is no secret among my friends and
acquaintances that I am a big admirer of the segments produced on "60
Minutes."One could say this was an
aberration, and indeed it was followed by a truly exquisite interview by Scott
Pelley of Travis Tygart, the United States
Anti-Doping Agency head.Parenthetically, what a wonderfully extensive interview that was, analyzing the evidence that
Lance Armstrong’s intimidation and prevarication continues, only slightly
abated.
But the interview of President
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton together? Let me drag up an expression of
years ago: "Gag me with a spoon."
Mr.
Kroft rarely interrupted, save his asking tough questions like “What is your
biggest success?" and the weak “Do you blame yourself that you didn’t
know?”
To call this softball is an insult to that relatively violent game.
Regarding Benghazi, the president and his new best friend’s “ironic”
conclusion was to quote Bill Gates that there is always “someone screwing up…it’s
a dangerous world.”
Inappropriate and tasteless.
This interview was an embarrassment to a great franchise, “60 Minutes.”
Professor Vatz teaches Media Criticism at Towson University and is author of The Only Authentic Book of Persuasion (Kendall
Hunt, 2012, 2013)
During his tenure in the General Assembly however, it turns out that Luedtke's opinions are malleable. That is, if you're willing to show him the money.
Prior to being elected to the General Assembly, Luedtke was like most of Montgomery County's liberal establishment in opposing the expansion of gambling. For example, he filed a bill that would outlaw video game rooms providing "sweepstakes" on the grounds that they would allegedly put slots on every corner.
Luedtke's position, in liberal parlance, began to "evolve" last year when the Maryland State Education Association began to be proponents of the expansion of gambling in order to get their claws into the revenue stream. Luedtke is a member of the MSEA and was of course a teacher. In March Luedtke found the existing bill in the regular session to be "troubling." But by the August Special Session the Metamorphosis of Luedtke was complete. He was now proposing fixes to the bills, instead of opposing them. And when push came to shove Eric Luedtke, who had been a lifelong opponent of the expansion of casino gambling, voted for SB1 both in committee and on the floor.
So, what changed Luedtke's mind? Well, clearly the trappings of power appealed to Luedtke's practical sense. I mean it can't be a coincidence that Howard County Delegate Frank Turner opposed the gambling expansion bill and then was replaced as Chairman of the Finance Resources Subcommittee, the subcommittee that deals with gambling, by Eric Luedtke.
But power of course isn't the only thing that talks. Money talks as well. The biggest individual contribution to Luedtke's campaign in 2012 came in on September 20th in the amount of $1,000. And the contribution came from.....Ocean Downs. An obvious beneficiary to the slots expansion. There were other related post-special session contributions as well, including $250 from Atlantic Bingo Supply and super lobbyist W. Minor Carter.
Take a look at the full campaign finance report to see all of the gory details:
So to recap, Eric Luedtke was against all forms of slot machine gambling until he realized that by voting for it he was opening himself up to the world of more power and larger profit. It's just another example of a leftist getting elected to office and throwing their liberal principles under the bus under the tried and true Maryland Democratic formula: Go to Annapolis, collect political contributions, obey the bosses and get rewarded with a subcommittee chair, and profit...... UPDATE, 1/26, 2:02PM: Luedtke responded via Twitter with the following, and some edits from the original were made. Though you can follow the entire conversation to see I touched a nerve....
Maryland Senate President, Thomas V. Mike Miller is
proposing to apply a sales tax to gasoline in an effort to generate revenue for
Maryland transportation projects, relieve congestion, and infrastructure
maintenance.
Last November Maryland’s top budget analyst told lawmakers
that Maryland has no money to start new projects and it would run
out of funds for maintenance by 2018.
According
to the Washington Post, Miller’s proposal would apply a 3 percent sales tax
to gasoline, on top of the 23.5 cents per gallon state tax and 18.4 cents per
gallon federal tax.Miller’s sales tax
plan is estimated to generate $300 million in annual revenue.Miller’s idea cuts in half, the 6 percent
sales tax on gasoline Governor
Martin O’Malley proposed last year.
Miller also proposed leasing the new Intercounty Connector
to a private firm, and creating special regional authorities with the power to
raise property taxes to pay for transit projects in the Washington, DC and
Baltimore regions of the state.
Maryland’s transportation funding woes are one of its own
making. Since 2003 the lawmakers have
raided the state’s transportation trust fund to the tune of $ 1 billion to
cover budget deficits.Both O’Malley and
Miller presided over much of those fund raids and cuts to highway user funds,
which the counties use to maintain roads and infrastructure.The excerpt below of a video from
Reason.TV explains how O’Malley took over $861 million—including $771
million in federal stimulus dollars allocated for infrastructure—and used it to
pay for other non-transportation spending.
Of course there is no guarantee that O’Malley, or his
successor, will not transfer any of the new revenues to cover general spending,
which has increased 14 percent since 2007.
Last year, The
Maryland Public Policy Institute analyzed various gas tax and
transportation revenue plans floated by the governor and others.The report found that O’Malley’s gasoline
sales tax, and other tax and fee proposals would disproportionately affect
lower income families, taking a larger share of household income from those
making $20,000 to $40,000 in income than families with higher incomes.The analysis noted O’Malley’s 6 percent sales
tax plan to be the most regressive among the various proposals.
MPPI also debunked the claim made by proponents of gas tax
increases that new revenues would go to relieving congestion and maximizing
mobility.The study found that a
disproportionate share of transportation money goes to transit, not roads, even
though transit ridership has not substantially increased. In other words, drivers using Maryland’s roads
disproportionately subsidize a small minority of transit users. Maryland spends 54 percent of transportation revenue on transit, while only 4 percent of all travel, and 9 percent of all commuting is done on transit.
Figures from The Maryland Public Policy Institute's Rethinking Maryland's Proposed Gas Tax Increase.
In fact, MPPI notes that, “even with substantial increased
in commuter rail (MARC) service and expansion of Metro service in the
Washington suburbs, approximately the same share of Marylanders get to work by
transit today as they did in 1980.”
Expensive transit projects like the Purple Line in the
Washington suburbs, and the Red Line in Baltimore will only increase the
funding imbalance while worsening Maryland’s congestion problems.
Instead of increasing gasoline taxes, MPPI recommended the
state pursue public private partnerships—like Miller’s idea for the Intercounty
Connector—with private investors much like Virginia has done since the late
1980s.Virginia’s partnership with
American and Australian firms is creating 14 miles of high occupancy toll lanes
(HOT).For a $409 billion investment,
Virginia will receive $ 2 billion in new road capacity.
MPPI also suggests Maryland, like Virginia under Governor
Bob McDonnell, undertake an independent comprehensive financial and performance
audit of the Maryland Department of Transportation.MPPI states that any reform process should
begin with “acknowledging that the state’s political leadership has failed to
adequately address the problem…They should also acknowledge that the whole
system might need to be rebuilt from the ground up to better serve the
citizens, not the leading legislators, the privileged interest groups that have
diverted state transportation funds to other purposes, or unproductive
transportation projects implemented for largely political purposes.”
