The Cost of Delay
October 23, 2007
Governor Martin O'Malley
Lt. Governor Brown: Ladies and gentlemen, the Governor of Maryland, Martin O'Malley. (Applause.)
Governor O'Malley: Thanks, Lt. Governor. Thank you all very. much. Lt. Governor and members of the Cabinet, thank you all very much and thank you for your good work over these last several months. And also thank you for your fortitude in hanging in there as we continue to work for a better future, even as we face the reality that there is a choice before us a people.
And I absolutely believe that whenever the people of our State and their representatives have been presented with the choice of moving forward and making our State a better and stronger place for the next generation or doing nothing and, thereby, making our State weaker and not better for the next generation, that as a people we always choose to move forward.
Over the past several months we have been wrestling with the consequences of choices that were made in a bipartisan way, actually, about five or six years ago when a billion dollars in revenues were cut and another billion and-a-half of new spending was approved without a revenue source.
Wrestling with that we have been able to do a number of things over the last several months, including reducing our rate of spending growth from last year's 12 percent to the two percent that it grew in this year's budget. We cut an additional $280 million out of the budget. We have proposed reducing spending growth in the future by a billion dollars over the next two years.
And, in a way I suppose probably uncharacteristic of the modern age of communication, we had enough faith in the intelligence and the goodness of the people of our State to roll out a comprehensive budget reconciliation plan that enables us to make our State a better and stronger place. And we did it not in one slap-dash, throw it all up against the wall. We did it in a way where we allowed time for each piece of the proposal, so that we could talk about it as the free and intelligent people that we are.
And I will be the first to admit to you, there are many things in that proposal that are unpopular. It is easy to pick out any one of them and find a dozen different reasons for why each of us might not like that piece in particular. But taken together, it is the consensus, it is the parameters, if you will, for a consensus that allows us to move forward.
And let me say one other thing, we do not propose raising any tax lightly. We do not do so because we think that it will not be without sacrifice on the part of the people who may be asked to pay more on any given piece of this. But we offered it together as a package because we are one Maryland, we are a community.
But we are very, very mindful that it will call on all of us to make some sacrifice. And we are deeply appreciative of that, we are very mindful and we are very respectful of that. We do not do so in any way to pit any one of us against each other, in fact, quite to the contrary. We do it so that we can advance as one Maryland.
At the same time, I have a responsibility to also be able to -- I also have a responsibility to lay before the public the consequences of our failure to reach a consensus. And I'm unveiling a budget here that, in essence, is a default budget. It lays out the cost of further delay and it lays out, if you will, the price of doing nothing.
There is a price to doing nothing. There is a price to doing nothing in every single generation of people that have come together under this dome from both parties. There has always been a price to doing nothing. We are not a people who would harm ourselves, who would harm our future, who would harm our quality of life by doing nothing.
I do not believe that this is what the people of Maryland and their representatives will choose -- a weaker State, a State where people in need of critical services are pushed off healthcare roles, a State where we're not able to keep police barracks open, a State where we have to close State parks. I do not believe that the people of our State would choose doing nothing and making our State weaker, rather than doing something and moving forward.
Nevertheless, there are many in both parties who, instead of advancing alternatives, instead of advancing constructive criticisms for how we can move forward, instead have chosen to advocate that we do nothing and, thereby, pay the price.
We must be honest with ourselves about what that price would be. The Lt. Governor and I did not run to preside over decline. Eighty-four percent of our budget is public education, healthcare and public safety. That is 84 percent of your State tax dollar is public education, public safety and healthcare.
If we were left to default and pay the price of doing nothing in the budget that is being laid before you today, we would be forced to cut support to local government by
$866 million, which is something that we do not want to do. That would include cutting things like schools, teacher pensions, libraries, police aid, drug treatment, public health, open space, community colleges, and grants to local arts organizations.
We would have to reduce our investment in higher education by more than a $160 million and the last time we did that the consequence was that the children of the working people of our State had to foot that bill in a different sort of way, with 40 percent increases in college tuitions, which is not good for making our State a better and stronger place.
Rather than making healthcare more affordable and available, we would have to cut medicaid by $200 million, which, as you know, all of us eventually pay anyway, when uncompensated care at the back end in hospitals gets backed into healthcare costs when we don't pay the prevention up front.
We would have to reduce our support of agricultural innovation and cover crops, the very cover crops that many farmers, hit hard this year by the drought, are no doubt counting on
so that they can keep their farm and also stay solvent.
We would have to go backwards in terms of biotechnology and reducing stem cell grants. We would have to cut reimbursements at nursing homes that are already hanging on. We would have to push children off of foster care. We would have to cut local tourism dollars. We would have to close a couple of State police barracks. We would have to lay off ten percent of the State's nonpublic safety workforce. And we would need to begin implementing reductions immediately in the coming weeks to prevent the reductions from being even sharper next year.
That is the truth of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. And a hopeful and optimistic thing is that it was human choices that led us to this point of reducing taxes and increasing spending without any options there to pay for them.
What we have to do now is choose that better and stronger future. And we have called upon the men and women of the General Assembly, people of both parties and people of good will in both parties, people of proud parties, parties that have both proclaimed their belief in fiscal responsibility. Both parties in their history have chosen to affirm their belief in a better and stronger future for the next generation.
And we are confident -- we are confident that when the men and women of the General Assembly wrestle with this challenge, they will move forward with a fair plan that protects middle class families, education, public safety and healthcare, that begins with those cuts we have already enacted. And under which most families in Maryland would actually see their tax burden reduced, so as not to harm Maryland's competitive standing with surrounding States.
What we have proposed is a long-term solution that is not only fiscally responsible, but it is much fairer than what we have seen in recent years, especially to the plight of working people and people on fixed incomes.
I firmly believe, in conclusion, that when we understand what the price is of a failure to do anything, when we understand what the price of doing nothing is for our quality of life as Marylanders, we will find a way to move forward and that's, indeed, and, in fact, what we have a responsibility to do.
Whenever we've been given an option of defending and improving our quality of life, or doing nothing and letting it decline, we choose progress as a people. And that's what we are going to do as we move forward.
I really appreciate you all coming out here today and would be glad to do my very best to answer any questions you might have.
