Budget

Maryland Senate President Mike "Boss" Miller has now extended the bounds of his seemingly boundless manipulation of Maryland by holding a special session of the General Assembly needed to pass a budget hostage to his lust for table games inPrince George's County("Leaders float the idea of two special sessions," April 25). If the two-session compromise goes into effect, the second session should be held at that fount of political influence, Atlantic City. This will make a great movie someday; one only hopes that John Goodman will be available to play the Boss.

The muddle that is Maryland's budget future cleared a bit this week as the three most important people in cleaning up the mess edged closer to an agreement on how to do so. The mess, of course, was left by state lawmakers when they ended the 2012 legislative session April 9 without reaching an agreement on next year's budget. This week, Gov. Martin O'Malley, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch emerged from a morning meeting to reveal the outline of a solution, one that would involve two special legislative sessions for lawmakers, one to deal with the budget, the other to consider expanding casino gambling in Maryland.

Letter writer Raymond Hoff bemoans what he calls UMBC's "doomsday" budget, which is really a "live within your means" budget ("UMBC excellence imperiled by 'doomsday,'" April 23). Mr. Hoff complains that UMBC faculty and staff have not had a cost-of-living increase in three years. But he should be happy to still have a job - a luxury not available to legions of unemployed Marylanders, some of whom have been unemployed for three years. He talks about academics who have moved out of the state and the difficulty of hiring replacements for them.

In response to your editorial "Put up or shut up" (April 11), I just have one question: What part of economics don't you understand? You mention that the president wants to "reduce deficits to a manageable size. " Yet in his budget he proposes growing government spending by 60 percent from 2012 to 2023, and increasing revenues by 113 percent. And he still can't balance the budget! This budget makes the argument that we need more government and more debt. His proposal leaves us with gross debt of more than 100 percent of GDP by 2020 (it was 40 percent of GDP in 2008 and is projected to be almost 80 percent of GDP next year)

I am extremely disappointed in Rep. John Sarbanes' opposition to an amendment that would have insisted that cuts to the Pentagon budget be a significant part of any effort to control deficit spending. The House is attempting to make sweeping cuts in federal government spending for the rest of this fiscal year, including cuts in domestic spending, diplomacy, development and international assistance. Why should the Pentagon budget be exempt from cuts? Military spending has doubled in the past 10 years and the Pentagon has a history of enormous cost overruns.

The Maryland Senate spent Wednesday afternoon plowing through the state budget bill and a companion measure shifting part of the cost of teacher pensions from the state to the counties, turning back Republican attempts to amend the legislation. Late in the afternoon, after giving preliminary approval to both measures, senators turned to the big fight of the week: consideration of a revenue bill that includes a $416 million increase in state income tax rates. If that measure and the budget companion bill don't pass, almost $750 million in contingent cuts in the budget bill would take effect.

The Baltimore Police Department has already gone over its overtime budget for the fiscal year, which ends in June, but Police Commissioner Anthony Batts says he will rein in the agency's spending. "We will be in budget at the end of the fiscal year. Period," Batts said during an interview at police headquarters last week.  How, exactly, remains unclear. Pressed for details this week, Batts said he has a plan but needs approval from City Hall.  The Police Department's overall operating budget this year is $410 million, and there's been a $3.4 million spillover on overtime spending.

Baltimore City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is trying to craft a budget that will trim expenses and property taxes to encourage an increase to the population ("First step to a better Baltimore," March 21). Reducing excessive city employees is a good first step. The big payoff would come from reexamining things the city does that are not done by competing, lower-tax suburbs. The mayor should engage an expert like former county executives Jim Smith of Baltimore County or Doug Duncan of Montgomery County to analyze things the city started doing when it was the largest, wealthiest jurisdiction, many of which enhance suburbanites' quality of life, that are no longer essential or affordable, and use the potential savings to help the city approach suburban tax rates.

The Maryland prosecutor whose City Hall corruption investigation led to the ouster of former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon said Monday that his office's proposed $1.2 million budget is "paltry" and prevents him from fully vetting allegations of fraud. "It is difficult to understand why the state is reluctant to spend relatively little to attempt to assure the budgeted money is being used as intended," State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh said in written testimony to a legislative committee reviewing his agency's spending.

Much of our current fiscal problem is the result of a stumbling economy, a problem that will work itself out over time. Raising revenue with new and increased taxation is not the way to aid the process of correction. Here is why. Everyone understands that reducing expenses today is a temporary measure. Next year, the legislature can restore the cuts in a heartbeat. But can anyone in Maryland, or the country for that matter, remember when a new or increased tax has been removed?