As Prepared for Delivery
Senate Chamber, Statehouse
Annapolis, MD
Thank you all very much. Happy New Year. It’s an honor to serve with the longest serving Senate President in Maryland’s history, President Mike Miller. And it’s an honor to serve with all of you.
We begin this session amidst the good news that through November of last year, working together we created 27,000 jobs in our State. We have now recovered 43% of the jobs we lost since the start of the recession, in times when the country as a whole has recovered only 28%. And in the most recent month for which we have data, together we achieved the steepest reduction in unemployment this side of 1984.
But we still have a lot of work to do. Therefore we must remain laser-focused this session on jobs, jobs, jobs.
These past five years, we’ve recognized that to create jobs, a modern economy requires modern investments. That’s not a Democratic or Republican idea, it’s an American idea, an historic and economic truth that we have proved out time and time again as a people.
These past five years, we’ve balanced record cuts in state spending with strategic, targeted, modern investments in education, innovation, public safety, protecting our land, water, and air, and rebuilding our infrastructure,… our roads, our tunnels, our schools, our water and wastewater infrastructure, our energy infrastructure, and our cyber infrastructure.
To create jobs, expand opportunity, and move our State forward, we’ll need to achieve that same balance over these next 3 months.
I look forward to working with you during this session.
Tags: 2012 session, senate
