Governor O’Malley is requesting that the citizens of Maryland go to his state web site and give the Governor suggestions on how to address Maryland’s current fiscal crises. 
When I first heard about this, I thought, What a great idea! Unfortunately, like most things in government, the devil is in the details.
To my surprise, I could not read what people were writing to suggest that the governor do about our fiscal crises because the web site does not allow citizens to view what other citizens have had to say to the State’s highest elected official. So much for the claims of transparency in government.
It is not hard to allow the public to view and participate in an online conversation. Just look at the end of this blog, there is a comment location where you click to leave a comment or to view the comments others have left and to perhaps respond to the comments of others, if you so choose. It costs nothing for me to do this and is easy enough to learn how to do.
Instead of sending a signal that the O’Malley administration is open to hearing from the citizens of Maryland how they would like to see our fiscal situation corrected, the governor has sent out a message that he does not want the public to know what people really think of his fiscal policies.
I fully expect that we will soon hear that those contacting the governor are telling him to raise fees, tolls and taxes, yet we will never be able to see those suggestions or to comment on them ourselves.
Likewise, we will not be able to read the many good suggestions to save money by cutting truly wasteful programs.
You can visit the governor’s website by clicking here.
Since you can not share your suggestions or comments with the rest of the world at that site, I ask that you please copy and paste your comments to the governors site, also at my comment section below. This way everyone can see what others have had to say to the governor about taxes and government spending in Maryland.
For those who need a few ideas on what message you can leave the governor I have suggested a few below.
1. Stop saying everything is ok because we have a triple A bond rating. All that is needed to get a Triple A bond rating is a willingness to raise any tax, on any one, at any time.
2. Write to each of the millionaire’s you chased out of Maryland with the millionaire’s tax and tell them, it was just a joke. Tell them we would like for them to come back, start a business and hire some employees.
3. Eliminate the newly formed department of technology and transfer the duties back to the departments that have handled them previously.
4. Reject Marx and Engels and embrace John Locke and Adam Smith. In fact, why don’t you buy copies of “The Wealth of Nations” and require your staff and Agency heads to read it.
5. Stop saying you have reduced the size of government when you have added just as many new jobs as you have eliminated.
I have many other suggestions but will hold back so that those sending suggestions to the governor can leave copys of their suggestions in our comment section below. Let the governor and or I know what you think the elected officials in Maryland should do to reduce the size of government and lessen the tax burden or if you prefer tell us why we should continue down the road to socialism and bankruptcy. (I know I slanted that a little but its my blog I get to be opinionated some times)
[...] Mike Smigiel (R-36) has a great review of Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s new “Online Suggestion Box”: When I first heard about [...]
Del. Smigiel – You say you want transparency from government. Start with yourself. Anyone can vote against tax increases and speak out against spending in the abstract, but “the devil is in the details,” as you say above.
In my book, a politician who votes against tax increases and boasts about it owes the people a detailed budget showing specifically how you propose to balance the books without the revenue the tax increase yields. Can you show us even that much before you call for further cuts?
After showing us a balance budget not relying on the tax increased you voted against, please back up your rhetoric about cutting spending with specific line by line cuts so the public can debate their merits. No one expects you to do this alone, but you and your GOP legislative caucus have access to legislative staff, and at there are at least two instate conservative think tanks accepting public donations and tax breaks to do this kind of heavy lifting. Gov. Ehrlich himself sits on the board of one of them, the Maryland Public Policy Institute. His former budget director, Cecelia Januszkiewicz, is or was until recently a fellow at the other, the Free State Foundation.
You and your GOP legislative colleagues have had three years since Gov. Ehrlich was unseated to produce an alternative budget showing in detail how you propose to cut spending, roll back the tax increases you oppose, and otherwise accomplish your goals. How can you expect Maryland voters to reward Republicans in the next election without showing us–with specifics–how you propose to do a better job?
- Steve Lebowitz, Annapolis
Well, Steve I guess we are reading from two different books. Mine is the Wealth of Nations and your appears to be the Communist Manifesto. The Republicans do offer real tax cuts, not reductions in projected expansions and claim they are cuts. Every session we fight on the floor for real deductions against expanding government entitlements.
Business is treated like a pocket to be picked. Business is used as a never ending well in which to dip for additional revenues. You don’t have to take my word on it as to whether we offer real solutions just click onto the legislative web site and listen to the actual debates over the bills and listen to the amendments that are offered. I think you would be surprised at the arrogance of those who have been in charge of Maryland’s finances for the last four decades and their lack of understanding of Capitalism. Corporate profits are treated as a bad thing that only greedy self interested robber barons talk about. It is appalling how little is understood about the way the real world works amongst the legislators.
Specific budget proposals have been offered every year for the last seven years by Republicans and rejected summarily by the Democrats because they can always resort to just raising taxes. The people are fed up with it and are starting to show their ire just look at O’Malley or O’Bama”s approval ratings plummeting. Look at the Tea Parties springing up everywhere. The citizens are rejecting Socialism and demanding fiscal accountability.
Del. Smigiel – Thanks for posting my comment and your response.
I call you out for not offering an alternative budget to back up your anti-tax and spend rhetoric and voting record and you imply I’m a communist!
I’ve read both Adam Smith and Karl Marx, and most of the canon of classic Western economic theory. Since you said you read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, you might want to have a fresh look at Book V, “Of the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth,” which outlines a fiscal regime much in line with Maryland’s and all 50 states’.
Concerning your reply to my comment, a few floor amendments served up at the very last minute with no backup material and few specifics are no substitute for a coherent Maryland GOP fiscal proposal.
Your last session before facing the voters is approaching. You and your GOP colleagues have a whole quarter before session to prepare a budget fleshing out your vision on taxing, spending, and governing in Maryland, and to sell it to the public. Consider this fair warning. If you fail to do so, voters will be hearing a lot about it from me and many others eager to call your bluff.
Today’s voters, thanks to the information age and a general but not necessarily benign cynacism, demand solutions, not just wind. Politicians who opposes tax increases without proposing specific offsetting spending reductions are doomed to perpetual legislative minority status.
- Steve Lebowitz, Annapolis
I did not call you a communist for calling me, out, I called you a communist for supporting the economic plan of the Democratic Administrations (As well as some recent Republican administrations at the federal level) which is to continually expand the size of government, to increase taxes and to stifle free enterprise. ( I agree, my rhetoric may have been a bit strong I will tone it down and call you a socialist instead. The difference being that I believe communist, do mean to, do harm to the capitalistic system, Socialist I believe, have good intent but just lack a realistic view of economic principles and human nature)
The O’Bama administration has taken this to a whole new level in it’s take over of the financial industry and the automotive industry. O’Malley is trying to do the same with BGE. We punish success and reward those who do not even try. Each session I watch so called progressives, get up and argue that we should be passing legislation that promotes the “from each according to his ability to each according to his needs” mentality. The progressives treat the word “profits” as if it were an admission of some crime against humanity.
The Republican caucus has offered a detailed list of proposed cuts and tax decreases every session, both in the appropriate committees and on the floor. You simply saying we have not does not change the fact that they are offered and as I told you, don’t take my word for it, just listen to the floor debates and you will see the republican suggestions are not “a few floor amendments offered up at the last minute with no backup material and few specifics..”
If fact, when you listen to the tapes of the debates you will often hear the Democratic opposition to the Republican proposals say something to the effect that:
The body should reject the amendments because they were heard by the committee and rejected by the committee and therefore they should not now be entertained by the body. That is political double speak for “we were able to kill this once, and therefore don’t even consider it, just vote against it.
If you were objective at all about what goes on in Annapolis you would know that the overwhelming majority of the time, the Democrats come to the floor with the marching orders that “no amendments will be allowed”. The only exceptions are for amendments coming from Democratic leadership or preapproved by said leadership. The parliamentary dance we perform to give the appearance of a just and well reasoned system is for appearances sake. Democratic leadership in Maryland wants to give the appearance of being a benevolent majority. Those of us involved or those objectively looking at how things operate know that what Maryland actually has is a tyranny of the majority. Unfortunately for the citizens of Maryland that results in a Kakistocracy.
The democratic majority took the billions of dollars we are receiving in stimulus dollars and instead of spending it on infrastructure needs, thus putting people to work, who would then have money to purchase cars, clothes, and to attend to their bread and circuses the
democrats expanded the size of our government entitlements in Maryland and increased our structural deficit down the road by billions because when the stimulus dollars stop the obligations of the larger government will continue.
If it were only Maryland, where the democrats were spending like drunken sailors, we might survive as a free Capitalistic Republic. (Actually, drunken sailors only spend their own money, the Democratic leadership in Maryland and DC are spending other people’s money, many of whom won’t even be born for another decade)
The Democratic leadership in DC has just pushed through the Stimulus package amounting to trillions of dollars which were created out of thin air. Are we supposed to spend our way out of debt?
This was followed by the Cap and Trade legislation which is based on flawed science that will destroy jobs and stifle initiative and independence. The Democrats pushed through this bill knowing no one could have even had the time to have read it!
Now, under the guise of making health care less expensive, the Democrats are pushing a nationalized health care system that will cost more than a half a trillion dollars. The details of this bill are now showing there are devils throughout the bill. The elderly or less connected will be denied access to medical care due to rationing. Those choosing to go without health care will be fined. The federal government may be taking over insurance industry regulation which has traditionally been a State area of regulation.
Words attributed to Lincoln over a century and a half ago seem very relevant today:
Lincoln said: You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.
Del. Smigiel – You’re kind to have a discussion on your blog with a critic who isn’t even in your district. For sure you’re earning the portion of my taxes that pay your salary.
I’ve been watching the legislative process pretty closely for a long time, and the first floor amendments with specific line item spending cuts from house Republicans I saw since your party lost the governor’s mansion were two offered in March 2008 totaling $600 million, which is a fraction the over $4 billion Gov. O’Malley and the Democrats actually trimmed from state budgets in the current term. If you have more examples of line item specific spending reductions proposed by GOP legislators, please post links and/or references.
Let’s say you prove me wrong and you’re right that you and your GOP legislative colleagues have valiantly offered amendments over the past three sessions (you said seven years), at the committee level and on the floor, to cut specific line item spending in amounts equal to or greater than the tax increases you voted against. How’s that program working out for you?
Rita Mae Brown said, “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
Time and time again, editorialists, bloggers, and other critics including the chairman of your own party, have called on Maryland Republicans to produce a detailed alternative budget proposal, conspicuously offering up your vision of taxing, spending, and governing in Maryland. Instead we get two-page double spaced press releases calling for across the board percentage cuts (How would you cut every item across the board by 25%? Equip police cars with 3 tires instead of 4?) or the most bizarre of all, saying you have a plan to balance the budget with 50 individual line items, but refusing to show it to anyone.
You know, it just dawned on me that it’s not too late pull that secret list of 50 cuts out of the filing cabinet, scan it and submit it to the governor’s budget suggestion website. Your secret would be safe with him. As you pointed out, it’s a confidential suggestion box and submissions aren’t published.
- Steve Lebowitz, Annapolis
PS – If we can return to Adam Smith for one minute, I forgot to mention earlier the chief knock on today’s conservatives staking a claim to his legacy that any environmentalist worth his salt should be able to tell you. Adam Smith published Wealth of Nations at the dawn of the American Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Depletion, pollution, and despoliation were unknown to eighteenth century Western thinkers, so these costs never factored in his excruciatingly comprehensive evaluations. If Adam Smith were writing in 1876, or 1976, or today, I have no doubt he would address the impact of agricultural and manufacturing processes on the health of individuals and the environment. Smith advocated free trade, free money, and activity-neutral tax collection, but he had nothing to say about workplace safety, hazardous materials, or the aforementioned depletion, pollution, and despoliation. Today’s conservatives have no business interpreting his silence on these matters, of which he and his contemporaries were unaware, as some kind of endorsement of late-twentieth century anti-regulation, -government, or -taxation politics. Smith lived in simpler times, Del. Smigiel, and these matters affecting your life and mine every day were simply unknown to Adam Smith and his contemporaries. – SL