Federal Government

It would be ironic if Maryland, for the first time in the history of municipal bond ratings, lost its AAA status now. Thanks to a combination of spending restraint, tax increases and other reforms, Maryland's balance sheet is stronger that it has been in more than a decade. Gov. Martin O'Malley's budget proposal leaves nearly $1 billion in various reserve accounts, and the legislature stands poised to change the way it funds employee pensions to make the system more solvent. But thanks to the dysfunction in Washington, that's just what may happen.

It's like a recurring bad dream. March: Hackers allegedly steal the credit card numbers from 1.5 million Visa and MasterCard customers by breaking into the computer systems of the company's payment processor in New York. The thieves stockpiled the stolen credit card numbers for months before beginning to use them. August: Cyber attackers disrupt production from Saudi Aramco, the world's largest exporter of crude oil, taking out 30,000 computers in the process, according to press reports.

The previous owner of University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center has agreed to pay the federal government $4.9 million for overbilling the Medicaid and Medicare system by keeping patients in the hospital longer than needed. Catholic Health Initiatives, which recently sold the hospital to University of Maryland Medical System, did not admit to wrongdoing under the settlement announced Thursday. The medical company said in a statement that it wanted to avoid lengthy and costly court proceedings.

Catonsville-based Alpha Omega Technologies performs work for one federal agency, and it wants more contracts - a daunting goal for a small company in a time of tight budgets. But the head of the 25-person software firm thinks he has a leg up after months of assistance from industry veterans, introductions to federal decision-makers, advice about how to get a foot in the door with the National Security Agency, and lots of specifics about how other companies succeeded or got tripped up in pursuing and handling federal work.

Rep. Andy Harris has introduced legislation to end the favored treatment union contractors receive on construction projects paid for by the federal government. The proposal, which in the past has been strongly supported by construction trade groups but opposed by labor, is a response to an executive order President Barack Obama signed early in his first term that required agencies to consider using project-labor agreements to set wages and site rules on federal construction projects.

Restricting guns from law-abiding citizens (exclusive of the mentally ill) is an assault on our rights as Americans that cannot be tolerated. Historically, the very first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired over the British trying to confiscate weapons from the colonists. Subsequent to the Revolutionary War, implicit in the debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists was the assumption that that the federal government should not have any authority at all to disarm the citizenry.

Congressional Republicans are stepping up their rhetoric on federal employee pay, positioning the issue as a central bargaining chip in negotiations next month over raising the debt ceiling and keeping the government open. House GOP leaders will hold a vote this week on legislation to overturn an executive order President Barack Obama signed last month to provide a 0.5 percent pay increase to the federal workforce - the first raise since the administration imposed a government-wide pay freeze in 2010.

As she prepares to step down as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa P. Jackson says one of the "prouder moments" of her tenure was President Obama's agreement to have the federal government take the lead in trying to ramp up the lagging Chesapeake Bay restoration effort. Jackson, whose agency's work to address climate change and reduce air pollution have drawn much more attention and controversy, recalled with pride her role in helping to renew a cleanup effort that had repeatedly failed to reach its goals in the decades before Obama took office.

In response to Charles Harrell's letter to the editor of Jan. 1, I say please leave Maryland ASAP. He indicated that he and his wife were federal government retirees and that he is puzzled why Maryland taxes his retirement income. In one short reply: because it is income, you dolt. As a former federal government employee, Mr. Harrell and his wife are used to feeding at the public trough. Now that they are retired, they don't like being treated like the common folk. Too bad, and get used to it. Martin A. Silvert, Baltimore Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

The federal government announced the creation of 106 new accountable care organziations, including five in Maryland, that will provide coordinated care to Medicare patients. Accountable Care Organizations are groups of doctors, hospitals, clinics and other health care providers created under health reform that work together to care for patients. The hope is that the coordinated care will help reduce medical errors and result in cost savings by  keeping people healthier. More than 250 accountable care organizations have been created around the country since passage of health reform.