Look at it this way: We could be California. Or Arizona or New York.
Maryland's budget problems are terrible. The fiscal year that ended two months ago "was the worst year on record for the modern income tax," David Roose, director of the Bureau of Revenue Estimates, wrote Tuesday in a report to policymakers.
Thousands of state employees are again taking involuntary furloughs. Hundreds are being laid off. Police departments, fire stations, health clinics, schools and trash agencies are losing resources and delivering less.
But believe it or not, in the big picture Maryland doesn't have it so bad. Gov. Martin O'Malley and other policymakers have done a pretty good job managing the mess they got handed, although they're certainly not finished making cuts. The misery is far worse in other states.
California is letting thousands out of prison early. Huge blazes threaten to deplete public resources to fight fires. The treasurer had to issue $2 billion in IOUs to taxpayers and vendors after cash evaporated in a political firefight. About 100 state parks are going to close. In New York, revenue shortfalls have equaled more than $1 billion a month recently after the revenue machine known as Wall Street disappeared. A dogfight in the legislature froze public business for weeks this summer.
Critics of Gov. David Paterson predict a California-style cash crisis if he doesn't make new cuts soon.
Then there's Arizona. The state faces a shortfall equal to a third of its budget, but lawmakers just repealed the state property tax.
The Republican legislature can't even bring itself to say yes to the Republican governor's request for a temporary sales-tax increase. Gov. Jan Brewer predicts "devastating cuts" to education and services, which in Arizona weren't all that great in the first place.
Against this backdrop what's going on in Maryland doesn't seem quite so bad.
Last week the Board of Public Works approved the layoff of 200 state workers, new furloughs for tens of thousands more and total new cuts of $450 million. Included in that figure is reduced aid for localities, which will now go through their own budget torture.
O'Malley, a Democrat, says he has made total reductions of more than $4 billion. But much of this is double-counting - adding up cuts in the same programs in different fiscal years. Don't worry - his Republican predecessor, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., played the same game.
