Sorry, no link for this one as you could have your pick of several sources for the news that inspired the article here (try Washington Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun papers, WBAL radio, WCBM radio and others).
It seems that current governor Martin O'Malley is finding that the deficit situtation in Maryland, and revenue situtation in Maryland is more grave than he originally wanted to admit and now he's trying to place the blame on his predecessor Robert Ehrlich.
The problem for Mr. O'Malley is that Mr. Ehrlich left approximately $1.5 Billion in the bank and Mr. O'Malley delayed the bad budget news of the current years because he didn't want to come into office and instantly raise taxes and user fees throughout the state to try to dig out of the hole that was already well known as he was being elected and later coronated.
Ehrlich had been arguing with the *Democratic* controlled legislature, primarily over in the state's House of Representatives where Speaker of the House Michael Busch refused to support some potential solutions, especially any real efforts at allowing slot machines into the state. Ehrlich fought that fight for all 4 years of his term in office and never was able to seriously correct the state's financial mess. He was able to clean things up enough to go from a very nasty deficit that had been left by his predecessor (the worthless sack of human flesh known as Paris Glendening), but not able to permanently fix things because no matter what he tried regarding allowing slot machines into the state or other smaller revenue enchancement sources, he was stymied by pushes by the House Speaker's blatant efforts to raise taxes.
O'Malley is interested in allowing slots into the slate also. Hmmph. For good reason of course. One being the revenue that they'd get from slots gambling in the state, and secondly, with O'Malley being a former mayor of Baltimore, O'Malley understands the importance of the Preakness horse race. Yes, that horse race. The one that runs later today and could be headed for greener pastures if Maryland doesn't step up and help the operators of the track do more to enhance their own revenues.
But O'Malley is also playing the political blame game hot and heavy. Check any of those referenced sources from my the start of this article and you'll find articles there where O'Malley is trying to say *his predecessor* was the revisionist and that it was all his predecessors fault. I call B.S. on that statement as should any one that actually followed the situation. I'm sure plenty of Mr. O'Malley's democrat voters will eat up his lies and mis-statements. They'll nod in agreement saying it was all Erhlich's fault while ignoring the legislators (aka wimps!) that they sent to the state capitol to do their business. They'll all pretend it was Mr. Ehrlich's fault and they'll try to push through huge tax increases to cover all of the spending they've promised and try to cover the costs for education while having mandated that there will be no tuition increases at the state's University system.
Apparently Mr. O'Malley and his party friends and faithful are too stupid to realize that capping revenue for the University system will raise costs that have to be paid elsewhere. They're too stupid to realize that they can't ignore needs for more revenue until they've let the structural deficit that they've acknowledged go another year. They are too stupid to recognize that when they look in the mirror they are seeing the ones that caused the problems.
Nice try O'Malley but I call b.s. all around you and your friends in the legislature. You caused the problems, and you will have opportunity to fix them by digging deeper into my wallet to take out more money at every opportunity. Thankfully, if all goes well, the next 3 years will be a time when you all show how bad you do run things and perhaps you'll again lose that stranglehold you seem to have on the state's offices.
