Cut Spending

As everybody knows, it's the poor people who are killing the damned country. Take away those welfare programs, we'd erase the national deficit overnight. Take away all those welfare deadbeats, we'd bring the country back to greatness.Everybody knows this, or at least attempts to cash in on it. Phil Gramm, announcing his run for president, says he wants welfare frauds to get off the wagon and pull their own weight. Newt Gingrich, asked about food entitlements for kids, declares, "It doesn't say anywhere in the Declaration of Independence . . . that anyone's entitled to anything except the right to pursue happiness."

WASHINGTON - Often, the view is clearest from a distance. A few years back, British author Harold Evans wrote a book calling the last 100 years The American Century. He was mostly correct. The United States did indeed dominate the 20th century - but it wasn't the American century, it was an American century. The next 100 years can belong to us also, although we can share them with the rest of the world, as we help make this, in President Bush's phrase, "liberty's century." Tuesday's vote confirmed that a clear majority of Americans want the president to lead us into that era. And there's plenty of work to do. Overseas, our troops are busy fighting terrorists - on their turf, not ours.

WASHINGTON -- It wasn't long ago that Republicans were everywhere, promising tax cuts. It was as if the party, after a long slumber, had decided to mount a Reaganite revival.Then suddenly, the talk turned gauzy and theoretical. Gone were vows to slash rates right away, and abstract lectures replaced fire-breathing attacks on the status quo.Republicans changed their tone because they discovered that they got outsmarted during last year's budget negotiations.They agreed to a law that all but forbids a tax cut before the year 2006.

WASHINGTON -- In a move fraught with political risk, key congressional Republicans said yesterday that they would move to cut spending on the health care that the elderly and the poor receive from the government over the next seven years.Seeking to balance the federal budget and avert a predicted bankruptcy of the Medicare trust fund in 2001, the leaders of the House and Senate budget committees said they would produce plans that curtail the growth in Medicare and Medicaid."We have a great health care system," said Sen. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

In his op-ed "Maryland must consider tax increases," Maryland Budget & Tax Policy Institute Director Neil Bergsman says Maryland has no other choice but to raise taxes. Mr. Bergsman is two years too late; the Maryland General Assembly voted in a 2007 special session to raise and expand the state's sales tax, create a new income tax bracket, raise the state's corporate tax, establish new taxes on property transfers, increase the state tobacco tax, expand the amusement tax and permit state-taxed slot machines.

A Wednesday bankruptcy filing by Synagro Technologies Inc. means growth and new jobs for the Baltimore area as the waste recycler consolidates its headquarters in White Marsh. The Carlyle Group LP-owned company, which had been co-headquartered in Baltimore and Houston, said Wednesday that it would use bankruptcy to restructure debt and sell its assets to EQT Infrastructure in a $455 million deal. The company filed for a Chapter 11 reorganization of its debts in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware and said it expects the sale to be completed in two to three months.

M aryland's budget deficit is a long-term problem that requires a long-term solution. Over the past three years, the O'Malley/Brown administration has made little to no progress in addressing the state's budget deficit. Increased spending, a failed slots bill, the largest tax increase in our state's history and federal bailouts make for a dismal track record. The Department of Legislative Services projects a cumulative deficit of more than $8 billion for the years 2012-2015 - $1,428 for every person in Maryland - yet Gov. Martin O'Malley has yet to offer a long-term plan to deal with this crisis.

Gov. Martin O'Malleyand the Democrats running Maryland will ruin our state if we don't speak up and stop the runaway spending. Moving the responsibility of paying for teacher pensions to the counties is just wrong. Governor O'Malley needs to show some leadership and balance his budget with serious spending cuts, not by raising taxes and moving costs to the counties. Fergie Grossman, Ellicott City

I cannot understand what passes through the minds of people at The Sun when it comes to taxes and government spending. A recent front page headline declared that "Millions slip away from city as condo values set too low" (April 29). But how can a condo that was never sold owe "full taxes" even though it is not a significant drain on government resources? There is no trash, mail, sewer, education or medical demands from a unit that has never had an owner beyond the builder, and for which basic fire and police service needs are also minimal.