Ehrlich on Washington column, November 19, 2001

с MEWS FROM Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. Second Congressional District of Maryland 1 407 York Rood, Suit* 304 LulhorvilU, Morylond 2 1 093 3 1 5 Cannon Hovm Offic» Building Wadiington, D.C 20515 EHRLICH ON WASHINGTON Week of November 1 9, 200 1 By Congressman Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. The Truth Behind the Glendening-Townsend Budget Over the past several years, Governor Parris N. Glendening and Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend have recklessly expanded Maryland’s budget, with little regard for fiscal realities in Annapolis. Now, as they prepare to peddle their wares for next year’s elections, Maryland’s fiscal woes are coming to the surface. Here are the facts as we know them: Warren Deschenaux, in the state’s Office of Policy Analysis, announced on October 30lh that by the end of 2002, given current projections for revenue and spending, the state will experience a budget shortfall of $1.7 billion. By state law, Maryland’s budget must be balanced each year with no outstanding deficit. Moreover, the state must maintain a 5% savings in the Rainy Day Fund, which was originally designed as a cushion to avoid budget deficits in lean years. Last year, Governor Glendening raided the fund for $557 million, more than any other governor in the nation, leaving only $80 million more than the legal minimum. Now, as it rains on Marylanders, the umbrella of protection rapidly dissolves. Leading Democrats in Maryland agree that this administration’s wild spending binges are coming home to roost. State Senator Robert R. Neall, a Democrat from Anne Arundel County, stated: “This budget was unsustainable the day we enacted it.” H. Furlong Baldwin, retired president and chief executive officer of Mercantile Bankshares Corp, who serves on the Joint Spending Affordability Committee, concedes that the $1.7 billion deficit projection "is too optimistic, too ambitious." The National Conference of State Legislatures sums up the current fiscal mess in Annapolis as “grisly.”