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Annapolis Wants Your Kidney

Guest Commentary by Steve Waugh

We’ve all heard stories of people in Third World countries who sold their kidneys to make ends meet. And we’ve all heard the stories of unlucky travelers who woke up in bathtubs of ice, missing their kidneys. While these tales might be dismissed as horrors a world away, the same thing is happening much closer to home.

O’Malley’s budget reconciliation will literally take a kidney from Maryland. From SB-141, "…MAY TRANSFER ANY AMOUNTS RECEIVED BUT NOT SPENT BY THE KIDNEY DISEASE PROGRAM…"

Here’s the bottom line – either we’re collecting more taxes than we need for the kidney program, or Annapolis wants to guilt us into paying taxes for kidneys so they can divert it to something less empathetic. As a result, we should either lower the tax or cut the spending.

This is but one of more than 50 examples of the skillful pouring of money from one bucket to another that O’Malley and his Annapolis gang are becoming famous for. The Kidney Program is part of our Maryland State Medicaid program. This might only be ‘creative accounting’ if they hadn’t convicted a former DHMH employee for diverting funds from the kidney program in 2008. It would appear that if you divert funds it’s a crime, but if politicians divert funds from 50 programs it’s called ‘reconciliation’.

This budget maneuver affects Southern Maryland very directly in two ways: We lost $10M in Transportation Funds to Montgomery County, and it authorizes more furloughs across the board, so our Troopers will get another pay cut.

In business, every day we search for ways to cut overhead and reduce the cost of operating while increasing capacity. NAVAIR instituted cutting-edge business practices and saved taxpayers millions. Yet in Annapolis there is no serious attempt to reduce the cost of government. On January 31, O’Malley told The Daily Record, "We’re running out of things to do to keep the engine from seizing up." This is a stunning lack of imagination or ignorance of standard business practice. He’s a career politician, and the only way he can attempt to balance our books is raise taxes.

O’Malley and the career politicians like to talk about how they’ve cut government spending, especially during this economic crisis. The Maryland State Budget for 2006 was $26B. The proposed budget for 2010 is $32B. That’s a cut? What is this — Annapolis Math?

We need some accounting that would stand up to an audit. Here are a few steps to take:

- Challenge every State agency to reduce its operating cost by 10 percent without reducing services. If they can’t cut their overhead they’re not good executives (or stewards of the public trust).

- Examine the taxes that feed every one of the programs O’Malley raided. O’Malley is showing us they have more than they need.

- Either permanently prohibit fund transfers, or be honest with the taxpayers and direct all revenues into the General Fund – because that’s where they end up.

Before April 15th Maryland will be led into surgery to donate a kidney. If we don’t get rid of the career politicians in November, in December we’ll wake up in a tub of ice missing the other kidney.

Make Maryland competitive and bring back jobs

Guest Commentary by Steve Waugh

Another major defense company, Northrop-Grumman, is abandoning California because of that state’s terrible business climate. The Washington Post ran this headline on Sunday, 14 Feb: "Maryland, Virginia governors pitch their states as site for Northrop headquarters"

For the third largest defense contractor to leave its headquarters of 80 years shows how bad things are in California. It’s no surprise either: The Tax Foundation ranked California 48th in a Tax Climate Index (New Jersey is 50th, which might account for the ‘Under New Management’ sign).

Northrop-Grumman wants to move hundreds of its highest paying jobs and $33 billion in sales to the Capitol area. Imagine you are the CEO - you can choose to locate your highest paid executives in DC, Virginia or Maryland, to be a short drive away from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill. What do you look for? There are lots of nice locations; office space is a bargain everywhere; the schools are pretty good on both sides of the Potomac. You’re running from California because of taxes – so you’ll look for the lowest personal and corporate taxes to bring your talent with you and make money for the stock holders over the next decade. Virginia’s corporate income tax rate is 6.0%, while Maryland’s is 8.25% - on $33B that’s a difference of $750 million dollars of lost profit every year (that tax rate was raised during the 2007 Special Session).

Virginia is ranked 15th, and DC is ranked 32nd. Maryland is ranked 45th. Virginia’s new governor is talking about cutting taxes further, while Maryland’s governor has a $3B deficit everyone knows will be solved with tax hikes on businesses and millionaires (after the election).

That didn’t take long. Fastest board meeting on record.

Maryland actually has worse personal income taxes and property taxes than California, and Virginia has considerably lower corporate taxes. For a business this is a no-brainer. We can change this – we can make Maryland competitive again – we can attract businesses with jobs and families to Maryland for the long haul, by lowering taxes. All it takes is some discipline, common sense and action in Annapolis.

Here’s what we need to do immediately:

1. Give every existing business a $1000 ‘advanceable’ tax credit for each full time job created, as it’s created. Existing businesses will hire those extra full timers they’ve been holding out for.

2. Reduce Corporate Tax to 2% for at least 2 years for new businesses. This reduces the start-up burden during the hardest time on a business in the worst economy.

3. Cut Corporate Tax in half for at least 2 years for businesses that relocate to Maryland, like Northrop-Grumman. The ideal location for their headquarters would between their customers in DC, Dahlgren and Patuxent River: which is Charlotte Hall. If Northrop relocated here, Maryland would gain $1.3 billion in tax revenue the first year.

4. Oppose Federal overreaching like "Card Check" legislation. This maintains Maryland’s sovereignty enshrined in the US Constitution’s 10th Amendment, and Articles 3 & 4 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights.

And for the long term we need to permanently reduce taxes to levels considerably below Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, which will attract businesses, entrepreneurs, and investment capital that will grow jobs within our community.

That didn’t take long. Fastest Legislature on record.

Let’s see what incentives O’Malley offers Northrop, and give them to everyone, permanently.

(Steve Waugh is a Republican candidate for State Senate Dist. 29)

Living on the Edge

Guest Commentary
by Steve Waugh
Annapolis is failing our community – it’s failing folks like Bill Carmichael who’s watched a cliff slowly creep toward his home for more than 10 years while bureaucrats in Annapolis refused to let him save his property. He’s not asking for a bailout; he just wants a permit to keep his house from following his Jacuzzi into the Bay. Some people ‘get it,’ like Susan Shaw, the voice of reason in the Calvert County Commissioners. She’s trying to help Bill - but she can’t break loose the logjam in Annapolis by herself.
Tony O’Donnell has led the charge in the Legislature. He had some apparent success in 2005 passing legislation that would enable permits to be issued. What he didn’t count on was DNR simply refusing to do it.
The more we dig, the more disturbing it becomes. The cliff that will eventually claim Bill Carmichael’s home is the protected residence of the Puritan Tiger Beetle. While the beetle is only listed as ‘threatened’ by the Federal government, Maryland chose to upgrade its status to ‘endangered’ and create protected habitats on the advice of a scientist from Virginia. This scientist regularly observes the beetles and reports counts of the population, which naturally perpetuates their status and the ‘protection’ of the habitat.
This is where it goes horribly wrong: there is no real science here. The gentleman from Virginia is in his 70’s and clearly states he must ‘observe and count’ the beetles visually from 20-35 feet away (or they scatter). If the beetle was more than ½ inch long that might be plausible, but there are more than 80 similar species on the same cliff that he has to discern between. Even worse, there is no evidence that stopping the erosion would harm the beetles – in fact, the measures in place will certainly destroy the habitat as it slides into the Bay (along with a house – that probably won’t help the beetles either). The final nail in the coffin: The science was never peer-reviewed, meaning nobody ever checked his work. DNR is willing to watch 450 homes fall into the Bay on one man’s flawed presumptions.
Annapolis and DNR are arrogant to assume that they have it within their power to stop evolution. Species will continue to rise and fall regardless of human activity (or government paralysis). The famous scientist, Craig Venter, discovered 1.8 million new species in a single year – by actively looking. Does government even know how to find a new species?
When I heard DNR is naming 16 new endangered species it begged a question: Did they estimate the economic impact to Maryland residents? Short answer – no. Bureaucrats are consumed with the impact of people on the flora and fauna, while they make no real assessment of the impact of government actions on residents. It’s offensive that they estimate the economic impact of their decisions on their own agency, but not on the taxpayers; it’s “Indeterminable.” Here’s how Glen Therres, DNR spokesman, put it:
“Here is our fiscal assessment, as published in the January 15, 2010 issue of the Maryland Register: The administrative costs to the Department of Natural Resources will be neutral…Direct and indirect effects on public: Indeterminable”
By my estimate, when 450 homes slide into the Bay residents will lose approximately $225 million; then the residents will be forced to pay to clean up the Bay. What’s really frustrating is the effect on the public was the last consideration, sixth on the list, while the impact on their government agency was their first consideration. What must we do to make government accountable to the citizens? We need leadership that will take charge and get action, not stand by and watch bureaucrats choose pests over people.
Here’s what needs to be done - DNR must be held accountable:
1. Explain why they refuse to grant legitimate permit requests
2. Clarify why they chose to declare a bug endangered
3. Prove their course of action will achieve their stated goal
4. Defend the 20 year employment of this ‘scientist’
5. Justify their lack of scientific peer-review
6. Account for their priorities for determining economic impact of regulation
7. Identify which of the 607 other ‘endangered’ species in Maryland used a similarly flawed process.
Tony O’Donnell is hosting a Town Hall to discuss this very important issue on February 20. Come join us to call for accountable government!