Governor Wes Moore’s State of the State address, draped in the familiar silken tone of his rhetorical flourish, was an exercise in the art of saying much while revealing little. The Governor, possessed of an almost celestial confidence, ascended the rostrum to regale the gathered legislators with the expected tributes to progress and prosperity. Yet, beneath the polished prose and theatrical delivery, one discerned a lamentable absence of substance – a vacuum artfully masked by the cadence of conviction.
Let us take, for instance, his bold proclamations on economic growth. The Governor spoke of Maryland’s inexorable march toward financial stability yet omitted any meaningful discussion of solutions for the state’s mounting structural fiscal burdens. He extolled public investment with a zeal bordering on the religious yet neglected to mention the tax burden borne by citizens who find themselves underwriting a vision that is more utopian than pragmatic.
The largest so-called reduction is the decision to withhold $420 million from the Rainy Day Fund – a fiscal sleight of hand that masks continued overspending. Moreover, the Governor shifts $145 million of spending burdens onto local governments, forcing them into the unenviable position of hiking local taxes.
The Governor’s plan is not cost-cutting; it is cost-shifting.
In a particularly Orwellian twist, Governor Moore speaks of economic growth and fairness in the same breath as he proposes tax hikes. His proposed reforms, ostensibly aimed at creating a “simpler, fairer, and pro-growth” tax system, are nothing more than a shell game. While promising modest cuts for middle-class families, he simultaneously proposes eliminating critical deductions like interest on home mortgages – effectively raising taxes on those very middle-class families.
Governor Martin O’Malley once dared to toy with the idea of eliminating the mortgage interest deduction during the 2012 Legislative Session in the throes of a budget crisis spurred by the Great Recession. The response, swift and unambiguous, “went over like a lead balloon”. Now, as if summoned from the fiscal netherworld, this noxious proposal has resurfaced within the smoke and mirrors of Governor Moore’s budget, proving that no bad idea ever truly dies in the corridors of Annapolis.
The elimination of the vehicle trade-in allowance, resulting in a $1,200 average increase in taxes on new car purchases, and the introduction of a 75-cent delivery fee tax are burdens that will be borne by working Marylanders. Governor Moore gives with one hand while taking with the other – leaving the middle class worse off than before.
Moreover, in his discourse on education, one finds a similar detachment from reality. The Governor’s soaring rhetoric on equitable schooling and educational opportunity lacked the cold steel of specificity. The words “bold action” were brandished with a frequency that might suggest a genuine commitment to reform, yet details were as sparse as prudence in a spendthrift legislature.
The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, an extravagant education reform program that siphons $1 billion annually from other critical areas like healthcare, infrastructure, and public safety, is heralded as a grand achievement. The Blueprint amounts to throwing more money into the same failed system and to the same people who have failed Maryland’s schools for decades.
To claim that the Blueprint is “fully funded” is to ignore the fiscal gymnastics required to sustain it- diverting 12% of the state’s total sales tax revenue into a program of questionable efficacy. If these funds were redirected to cover Maryland’s pressing obligations, the purported need for the Governor’s billion-dollar tax hikes would evaporate.
And yet, what would a gubernatorial address be without the requisite invocation of bipartisanship? The Governor, eyes alight with nobility, extended the olive branch across the aisle, as is the custom. One might admire the sentiment, were it not delivered with the knowing grin of a man who expects compliance rather than compromise. Bipartisanship, in the Moore lexicon, appears to mean acquiescence to the prevailing orthodoxy. Disagreement is not met with reasoned debate, but with the passive-aggressive suggestion that all rational minds must inevitably converge upon his conclusions.
This brings us to his remarks on crime – a topic that looms large over the state, much as an uninvited menace at an otherwise jubilant holiday celebration. With the surety of a man untroubled by dissonance, the Governor spoke of Maryland’s commitment to justice, invoking statistics meant to reassure. And yet, those who traverse Baltimore’s beleaguered streets, who shutter their businesses at dusk for fear of the coming night, know better. The Governor’s faith in policy solutions that favor the abstract over the concrete is touching, but it is not they who face the daily consequences of such faith.
One must also consider the Governor’s rather curious remarks on workforce development, which, in their fervor, bore an eerie resemblance to a corporate seminar on “Synergistic Strategies for Excellence.” The listener was treated to a string of euphemisms – “reimagining opportunity,” “leveraging untapped talent pools,” “catalyzing innovation” – that might have impressed a room of management consultants but did little to assure the average Marylander that the government has a plan beyond enthusiastic sloganeering. Indeed, one might ask if there is an inverse relationship between the eloquence of one’s vision and the clarity of one’s policy.
Perhaps the most malicious aspect of Governor Moore’s address lies in his continued commitment to Maryland’s untenable energy policies. The Governor trumpets his administration’s environmental initiatives – embracing the fiction that Maryland can lead the nation in clean energy while remaining economically competitive. The reality, however, is starkly different.
As Maryland’s remaining fossil-fuel power plants are shuttered under the weight of draconian environmental regulations, reliability plummets, and energy costs skyrocket. Meanwhile, the Governor touts offshore wind – an expensive, inefficient technology that jeopardizes our marine ecosystems and mars our coastlines. The decision to adopt California’s radical vehicle emissions standards, which would ban the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035, is another ill-conceived measure that will stifle economic growth and disproportionately hurt lower-income families who cannot afford costly electric vehicles.
Governor Moore and the Legislature must abandon their reliance on mandatory spending formulas, relics of a bygone era of fiscal largesse, and confront present realities with an ironclad resolve. The notion that budgetary prudence must be synonymous with increased taxation is a fallacy perpetuated by those who refuse to countenance an alternative.
The Governor could, with a simple stroke of political courage, excise the rot of automatic expenditures that have strangled the state’s financial discretion. If we are to balance the budget without raising taxes, we must begin by dismantling these sacred cows requiring fiscal inertia.
It is a peculiar quirk of modern governance that the elimination of waste is seen as an act of barbarism, while the profligate expansion of government largesse is hailed as enlightened progress. If Governor Moore seeks a legacy beyond the perfumed rhetoric of the present, let him be the one to sever these constraints, to recognize that government must live within its means as surely as the citizens who sustain it. Fiscal responsibility need not be a euphemism for austerity – it can be, and indeed must be, the means by which Maryland flourishes without constantly pilfering the pockets of its people.
And here, we must not neglect the Governor’s musings on Maryland’s place in the national tapestry – a refrain often repeated with a poetic flourish that suggests a preference for the aesthetics of leadership over the burden of governance. One is led to wonder whether the Governor envisions himself as an orator first, a statesman second, and an executive only when necessity demands it.
The artistry of his delivery, while commendable, does little to address the grim mathematics of governance. Maryland’s budgetary constraints, the regulatory stranglehold on business, and the flight of capital from our borders are not matters that yield to soaring speeches.
The address concluded, as expected, with an optimistic crescendo – one meant to leave the audience in rapturous belief that the best is yet to come. It is a noble sentiment, to be sure, but optimism untethered from reality is but a mirage.
One might wish that amidst the oratorical flourishes, there had been a whisper of humility, an admission of the very real obstacles ahead. But such concessions do not make for rousing speeches. And so, we are left with yet another exercise in political theater – well-performed, well-received, and yet, upon closer inspection, frustratingly insubstantial.
In the end, Governor Moore’s address was less of a Blueprint for Maryland’s Future and more a bedtime story for those who prefer comforting illusions to the hard truths that reality demands.
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