Committee for Montgomery
December 13, 2010
North Bethesda, MD
As Delivered
County Executive Leggett, thank you very, very much. It’s good to see all of you bright and early here in Montgomery County, land of my bread and buttering, lest I ever forget it. (Laughter.)
Happy Holidays. It’s great to come home to Montgomery County. (Applause.)
It’s also a pleasure to be here with Senator Cardin, who is doing very important work, especially in these times, in the halls of Congress. I also want to thank Donna Edwards, who represents a big chunk of Montgomery County. And Congressman Chris Van Hollen for all of his support and leadership in the halls of Congress and throughout our country.
The times ahead won’t be easy, but I will challenge you to find another state anywhere in the United States that has a higher quality of representatives in the halls of Congress than the State of Maryland does. (Applause.)
Recently you’ve re-inaugurated -- can we say re-inaugurated? Inaugurated for a second term one of the outstanding county executives in America, Ike Leggett. Because of his leadership, because of his effectiveness, Montgomery County is coming through these difficult times in much stronger shape than virtually any other county in the United States. And that sort of leadership is not a matter of accident or chance. It’s the product of choices. And they’re the tough choices that Ike Leggett has made every single day. So, Ike, thank you. (Applause.)
I also want to thank all of the other representatives that you send to our Legislature. So many of them are here. And I also congratulate President Valerie Ervin and all the council members, (Applause.) and the mayors who are with us, as well as Charles Washington and everyone with the Committee for Montgomery.
I was listening to the comptroller’s words on my way in and I thank him for all of his leadership, also from Montgomery County. In fact, at the Board of Public Works -- you have three Montgomery County natives for the first time at the Board of Public Works. And not only Peter Franchot and myself, but also Nancy Kopp. (Applause.)
And I could tell by your reaction to the comptroller’s declaration of a moratorium on any new taxes that it’s pretty clear that in Montgomery County, just as in the rest of the State, that people are united in their desire for more services, better transit and infrastructure and lower taxes and we don’t care how much it costs.
It’s the way we’re living, right? I mean, if these things were simple, there’d be no reason for us to go to the polls every couple years and cast votes. We all want more, we all want to pay less for it, we all want a better quality of life, we’d all like to be able to eat cake and lose weight. But at the same time, we know that’s not the way the world works.
So what we’re going to have to do is continue to make the tough choices. Mindful not only of what we’re doing for today and tomorrow, but what we’re doing for next year and the next ten years. Not only for the impact that those choices have on this generation of Marylanders, but the impact that it has on the next. And perhaps, by the product of our choices and by the success of our journey, maybe we might even be able to do a tremendous service to our country. Especially at this time when one of the things that unites America is the fear of decline.
Forward with Montgomery County
There’s an old joke about a guy who asks the cab driver for directions in New York City,… he says: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” And the cab driver, as you know, tells him:“Practice, practice, practice.”
There are no short cuts to Carnegie Hall and there are no short cuts to better economic days, but we know how to get there. And we know that getting there requires choices, choices, choices.
Choices that spur innovation, choices that promote educational achievement, because the more a person learns, the more a person earns. Choices that promote the creative capacity of our people -- from the earliest of preschool grades through the labs of the research institutions with which we are so very blessed in this State. Choices that help us create and to save jobs and especially in the new economy. Choices that position us to transition into this new economy stronger and without leaving any of our families behind.
Make no mistake about it, we are in a fight. It is a fight for our children’s future, it is a fight for our economic future. Not only as a State, not only as a county. It’s a fight to transition to this new economy with more opportunities for all. And in this fight there are going to be some states that win and there are going to be some states that lose.
And for Maryland to be one of those states that wins and shows other states the road ahead, we must move forward by creating jobs through innovation, by saving jobs and protecting public safety, public education and our very quality of life.
In order to do any one of those things, you have to do all of those things. And you must do them all with fiscal responsibility. Not an easy task.
Anyone can balance a budget. But balancing a budget while protecting the most vulnerable among us, balancing a budget while protecting our competitive strengths, balancing a budget while investing in our innovative capacity in order to create and save jobs -- that’s hard. And that’s the task that we have ahead of us as a people.
You know, as I was talking, I was kind of chuckling to myself because being bi-metropolitan, I understand not only the strengths of the jurisdictions in the Washington area, the strengths of those in the Baltimore area, but I also understand the sense of not being appreciated that each state brings to the table.
Now, the County Executive did a very good job of recapping the sense of not being appreciated that I have heard since I was a little boy in Rockville, Maryland. And that is the sense that we’re under-appreciated because of the wealth of Montgomery County and the State treats us like an ATM.
“And nothing ever comes here, you know, not a 74 percent increase in school construction, not a huge increase in school operating funding. The ICC would never, ever come to Montgomery County. No other place in Maryland would ever care about the Purple Line, mass transit or Metro.” I understand that.
And then, just around the bend, in Prince George’s County, another jurisdiction where you’re separated by a prominent metropolitan area and the same beltway, is the sense that we’re not appreciated here. The reason we’re not appreciated here is because “we always vote loyally and we always vote in big numbers and, therefore, we’re not appreciated here.”
And then you go up north and in Baltimore City -- people in Baltimore City say, “you know what, the Governors of Maryland never appreciate us. The reason they don’t? Because we’re poor. We never get the campaigns. There’s a lot of us in Baltimore City who are poor, that they take us for granted, they don’t care about us, that we’re loyal and we’re poor, and the Governor doesn’t care about us.”
And then when you go outside of Baltimore City and into Baltimore County -- and I know from having grown up here that it’s a lot closer to drive from Baltimore to Washington than it is to drive from Washington to Baltimore -- (Laughter) -- but in Baltimore County there is a sense that, “you know what, the Governors of Maryland don’t appreciate us. The reason they don’t appreciate us is they could never count on our votes, we swing back and forth, from one election to another and, therefore, nothing ever comes to Baltimore County.”
I recognize all of those, that sense of not being appreciated. But, look, we’re all in this together. We are One Maryland and we are all in this together.
And in this fight, though, Montgomery County has a unique and critically important leadership role to play. You are a global hub of innovation. You are leading in science, leading in security, leading in health, leading in discovery, leading in information technology, all the sectors that hold promise, not only for our State’s ability to renew our economy, to create jobs, but also they are all the things that hold within them the ability of the United States of America to once again be a resurgent republic. Not only because we’ve sent smart weapons against our enemies halfway around the world, but because of the cures that we unleash from places like NIH and labs throughout the I-270 technology and bioscience corridor.
It’s our role in State Government to help your county advance innovation and job creation. And part of that job creation infrastructure, of course, is public transit, which matters to our quality of life and also the quality of the land, the air, the water that we enjoy and that exists in a finite amount.
To strike a more sustainable balance between roads and public transit, we are moving forward with the locally-preferred option for the Purple Line light rail. And with your help, it’s being built. (Applause.)
We’re going to continue to invest in the greatest asset we have in an Innovation Economy, and that is the talents, the skills, the educational achievement levels of our children. That’s why in the toughest of times, we increased school construction funding to Montgomery County by 74 percent. That’s a record over four years and a record increase.
And alone among the 50 states, as One Maryland, together you and I were able to freeze college tuition,… To make investments in tough times to make up for what otherwise would have been a tuition increase. We’re the only state in America that for four years in a row has frozen tuition so that our kids didn’t pay another penny in college tuition. (Applause.)
You can always tell where the people are with kids that are about to enter college. (Laughter.)
Making the New Economy Ours
We have emerging sectors of our economy that hold so much promise.
It’s our priority to strengthen our emerging cyber security sector through an initiative we call CyberMaryland. They’re never going to off-shore the cyber security jobs, that diverse, talented smart men and women from cultures all over the globe come together around, at the National Security Administration. Those jobs aren’t going someplace else. There are 20,000 more jobs being created there, because of the Joint Cyber Command, an announcement that was made with a whisper, as NSA tends to announce big things, on a Friday afternoon.
And we’re also strengthening our green-tech and clean-tech sectors, as we move forward toward our goal of creating, saving, and placing our fellow citizens in 100,000 green jobs. You see it happening all around in green buildings that are popping up in all parts of Montgomery County.
We continue to lead other states in our support for life sciences. In the toughest of times, we moved from fourth place ranking with the Milken Institute of life science, biotech, and economy in 50 states, to second. And we can continue to excel and be the leader.
That’s why we did things in tough times that other states weren’t able to do, like actually increasing our biotechnology tax credit, extending our R&D credit.
We created the Hiring Tax Credit, the Small Business Loan Guaranty Fund, to get the pumps of small business lending primed again on Maryland’s main streets.
And in this upcoming session I really need your help, for those of you that are in that innovation sphere, with something we are calling InvestMaryland. It’s an idea that actually percolated up from our State legislature. We would allow companies, big entities, insurance companies, to forward pay at a discount their tax liability. And then we take that $100 million and invest it with a venture capital that is in such short supply, but which we know can expand jobs and create job creation, especially in life science, biotech and other emerging areas.
Because of the tough choices we’ve made together over these last four years, we are recovering stronger and faster than most other states as we transition to this new economy.
Since January, together, Maryland has created 40,600 jobs. It is a rate of job creation that is the best rate of job creation that we’ve had as a State since the year 2000. And it is a rate of job creation that is twice the national rate of job creation. (Applause.)
We are one of only eight states that still defends a Triple A bond rating. And the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, hardly a mouthpiece for the O’Malley/Brown administration or any other administration -- but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says that your State, our State, that Maryland is the second-best state in the country for innovation and entrepreneurship.
The Kauffman Index on the new economy ranks us third.
And Education Week magazine two years in a row -- but we still have a lot of room for improvement -- Education Week magazine listed us two years in a row as having the best public schools of the 50 states in America.
I see Cliff Kendall out there. University of Maryland -- even with holding the line on college tuition to make college more affordable -- is ranked one of the top ten best value public institutions in the United States of America.
I rattled those things all off, not by any means to tell you that we’re out of the woods. We’re not out of the woods. But I think they should give all of us reason to believe that we will come out of these woods sooner than other states. We might even come out with a stronger competitive advantage compared to other states, as our nation squares her shoulders for the big task of not being out-competed by China, India and the other forces that are on this global stage.
Tough Choices
For every choice that we’ve made over these last four years and the choices ahead, Lt. Governor Anthony Brown and I have always asked the question: “What does this mean -- what does this mean in the most important place in our State? What does it mean at the most important power center in our State, the kitchen table, for the families of Montgomery, Prince George’s, Baltimore City and every other county.”
Look, there’s no way around the difficulty of the upcoming fiscal year. I’ve seen some recently-elected Governors in other states talking very disparagingly about the Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the important courageous investments that our President and some of our Congressional members with your votes were able to protect over these last two years.
Thank goodness they had the courage to do what they did at a time when it was politically unpopular, but it was very important to America’s competitive strengths and ability to come out of this recession.
We’re able because of those dollars to do a much better job of protecting education, protecting the health of our people than otherwise we would have. Especially given the contraction that’s happened in all your businesses, right?
You know, you try to go get a loan now and they look at cash flow over the last two years -- hasn’t been a lot of cash flow over the last two years. And the same is true -- because it’s reflected in your revenues.
There’s no way around the difficulty of the upcoming fiscal year. The only way I know to deal with this is by being open and being honest about the choices that we face. And this is going to require sacrifice from all of us.
The very best that we will be able to do for a great many very worthy, top priority areas is to defend them by level funding them. That’s the best we’re going to be able to do.
For others, we are going to -- the best that we’ll be able to do is to minimize the cuts that will have to be endured for the next couple of years until the economic growth starts to bring our revenues up to a much more sustainable new normal.
As I say all of those things, none of these difficulties and none of these sacrifices can be allowed to deter us from pointing to the true north that is our economic future, that is the better future that we prefer for our children.
Some of the toughest and most important choices that we’ll make during the session will also be choices that allow us to save our State pension system. Not only with regard to teachers, but with other state employees. We owe it to our police, to our teachers, to our children, to all taxpayers to find a more sustainable way forward, so that people won’t have to go to work in fear that the rug is going to be pulled out from under them through no fault of their own when it’s time for them to retire.
These are not easy choices. There is no state that’s at a point where these choices are behind them. All of the states are facing these challenges. But the thing I admire most about all of you and about your neighbors in our State, is that when we face times of great adversity, we don’t make excuses, we make progress. That’s who we are and that’s what we have always done.
And we know that we would be facing even more painful choices had we not chosen a fiscally responsible path every step of the way. Cutting our State Government by $5.6 billion, reducing the size of government.
You know, the size of our State and local government bureaucracy in Maryland -- fun factoid to take away from today’s breakfast -- actually ranked eighth from the smallest among the 50 states. Eight from the smallest among the 50 states.
There are things that we do in excess of the other states, like investing in higher education for affordable college. Like investing in the best public schools in America. And there’s a business reason why we do those things. It’s a business reason that you see justified and played out in a raised job creation this year that is one of the top three of any of the 50 states in the United States.
So there will be more cuts, there will be more sacrifice. But what we will not do is abandon our families or abandon our future or let our state be relegated to second tier status when we’re in this urgent fight for a better economic future for our kids.
And what we won’t do is diminish the dignity that each of us holds for our neighbors, the dignity of every individual.
Conclusion
I want to mention to you as I close, this great column by EJ Dionne in the Washington Post this morning. And I wanted to read just a few paragraphs to you:
He writes: “Fear of decline is an old American story. Declinism ran rampant in the late 1970s and early '80s. Stagflation, the Iranian hostage crisis, anxiety over Japan's bid for economic dominance and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan all seemed to be symbols of a United States no longer in control of its destiny.”
He goes on: “The current declinist sentiment arises from a widespread sense that in the first decade of the new millennium, our country squandered its international advantages, degraded its power with a long and unnecessary engagement in Iraq, wrecked the federal government's finances - and then saw its economy devastated by the worst financial crisis in 80 years. All this happened as China especially but also India began to challenge American preeminence. Americans feel something is badly wrong, and they are fully justified in their alarm.”
All of that having been said, I remain very optimistic about our future. And if you look around at the assets that we have in our State, you’ll see that there is not a state that is better positioned, better prepared, better equipped to make this turn into a new economy. If you consider the talents and creativity of our people – and that we sit at the epicenter of science, healing, security, innovation, discovery (especially here in Montgomery County) – there’s not another place in the country better prepared to take advantage of these obvious challenges and turn them into opportunities.
It is great work that we are about to embark on in these next four years together, I think. It’s work on which the future of our state depends. It’s work that the next generation is urgently watching. And it is work that our country needs us to succeed at, especially now.
Thanks very, very much. (Applause.)
