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Maryland under siege

Originally published in the Frederick News-Post

Economic & Fiscal Policy

by Marta Hummel Mossburg

OP-EDS

The United States of America is at war. Maryland is not -- despite Gov. Martin O'Malley's recent statement that it would be "probably irresponsible, especially at a time of war, to make that pledge" not to raise taxes if elected to a second term.

The only fighting time clocked by the governor is in a battle of the bands, so maybe he doesn't understand the meaning of the word.

As a trained lawyer, however, the governor should know words matter. And that sloppy word choice leads to sloppy thinking and eventually to poor policy. That is not a liberal or conservative viewpoint. A leader of the intellectual left, writer Christopher Hitchens, is a stickler for proper word choice. He quipped recently about how his good friend novelist Martin Amis falsely accused him of misusing "infamous."

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, also appears to care about word choice, specifically for its importance in understanding state policy. He told a reporter recently, "When you ask me questions I am going to answer them directly, straightly, bluntly. And nobody in New Jersey is going to have to wonder where I am on an issue."

Would that O'Malley follow their lead. By misusing war, however, the governor equates the state's fiscal state with mass chaos and crisis, death, destruction and calamity out of personal control.

The problem in Maryland -- overspending -- happened not by accident, but by a series of bad choices in the control of state legislators and governors and can be unwound by good choices guided by clear priorities.

And if there is a war going on in Maryland, it is not the national financial crisis, but the assault on business in the state. For the governor to say that "It's my intent not to. It's my great hope not to" raise taxes in the same conversation as his "war" comment is the equivalent of someone sealing a deal with a handshake, no contract and two fingers crossed behind his back. He might as well have said, "Get ready, higher taxes are coming."

Such rhetoric could not have come at a worse time, with the latest Fortune 500 list showing Maryland is home to only five of the companies compared with 20 in Virginia and the Forbes list of Best Places for Business and Careers showing that Baltimore dropped 50 slots in the latest survey. His remarks also came right before defense contractor Northrop Grumman publicly announced it was moving its headquarters from Los Angeles to Virginia instead of Maryland or D.C. And they build on Maryland's bad reputation, sealed by the 2007 special session tax increases.

As statistics show, the state's bias has consequences. According to Virginia's economic developers, 386 new businesses added jobs in that state in the last five years. In Maryland, it was 150 according to statistics from the state's economic development office. Each state will not find out about every new business that relocates or expands, but for Virginia to win more than twice as much business while having 38 percent more people is out of whack.

If O'Malley wants Maryland to be a high-tax, high-government-services state, then he should speak clearly about his goals. Talking out of both sides of his mouth is confusing, and as statistics show, is a losing strategy for attracting business and people to Maryland.

Marta Mossburg is a senior fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute. Mmossburg@mdpolicy.org