The Governor's State of the State speech [last] week was filled with new laws he wants to pass and more programs he wants to create. This, he proclaimed, is what it takes to move Maryland "forward out of recession and into better times."

Many of us in the General Assembly disagree with his plan to get us out of the recession. We believe a better approach is to re-evaluate the taxes and burdensome regulations on our small businesses.

The Governor's annual speech did not address our greatest challenge: The $2 billion budget deficit that will almost certainly lead to another round of tax hikes by the majority party after the November election.

His plan to fill the budget hole contains $600 million in fund transfers, basically moving money from one pile to another without really solving the problem. Even with the mounting federal deficit, the Governor continues to hope that President Obama will ride to the rescue with more stimulus money to backfill Maryland's budget. Those federal dollars come from the wallets of all working families, including Maryland's.

The Governor pushed several new programs during his speech on Tuesday:

• Using federal bailout money to lower businesses' unemployment tax rates, but costing businesses millions more in the long term.
• Requiring mandatory mediation for housing foreclosures.
• Passing more laws against child predators.

Maryland's unemployment insurance fund is going bankrupt because Maryland's jobless rate is at a 26-year high of 7.5 percent, and, last year, the Governor pushed through expansion of unemployment benefits. Because of this expansion, employers face a tripling of their unemployment insurance premium.

Regarding sexual predators, the Governor has failed to implement laws put on the books in the last year of the Ehrlich Administration.  The laws created a Sex Offender Advisory Board. But the Board never had a meeting. More legislation will not solve the problem if current laws are ignored.

We Republicans have worked the last four years to offer alternatives to the budget, opposing costly new programs and regulations and offering budget reductions. Throughout that time, we have not been offered a seat at the table. Finally, this week, the Republican caucuses were invited to offer budget alternatives at the end of the month. We look forward to that opportunity.

For more information on this week's legislative issues, you may want to read the Legislative Wrap-Up, prepared by the state Department of Legislative Services every Friday.

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Website:
Title:
UBBCode:	[b]   [i]   [u]   [url]   [quote]   [code]   [img]   -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge
Security Image
Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

!joomlacomment 4.0 Copyright (C) 2009 Compojoom.com . All rights reserved."