Federal Spending

For federal government work, the cliche has long been that Maryland gets the "life" sciences such as medicine and the Census while Virginia gets "death" -- namely, the Pentagon.Both states count government as their biggest industry, but Virginia's portion is flourishing and Maryland's is treading water."The death sciences have paid off better," said Stephen Fuller, a George Mason University professor who tracks federal spending the Washington metro area.It's not that Maryland is fading from the financial glare of the nearby federal capital.

Maryland's biggest industry isn't steelmaking, health care, grocery stores or tourists. It's government. Federal government.The $16.3 billion that the United States spent on contracts, wages and salaries in Maryland in 1995 surpassed the entire state budget that year by almost $2 billion. And that's not counting Medicare, Social Security and other entitlements, which boost total U.S. spending in Maryland above $35 billion a year.Some of the richest sources of U.S. dollars are the contracts for products from vendors ranging from aerospace contractors to janitorial services.

WASHINGTON -- Federal downsizing in Maryland means more than a decline in jobs. A new government report suggests that it also means millions of dollars for the private sector in government contracts.As government shrinks in the era of decreasing budgets, more federal dollars are going to Maryland businesses, according to a report released yesterday by the Bureau of the Census.The report -- the bureau's annual accounting of all federal spending, by state and county -- ranked Maryland No. 2 in federal dollars earned, at $7,361 per capita, for fiscal 1995.

WASHINGTON -- In a painful retreat, Republicans who took over Congress two years ago and waged a crusade to shrink federal spending have given up some gains to reach a quiet end of their tumultuous term.Badly bruised in budget battles with President Clinton that resulted in two government shutdowns last winter -- and facing stiff re-election challenges in many districts -- the Republicans have yielded to Clinton's demands to restore $6.5 billion in cuts to his pet programs as the price for a clean exit from Washington a month before November elections.

WASHINGTON -- This presidential season is defined by a double paradox: The voters' conservatism is making them resistant to Bob Dole's message and tolerant of Bill Clinton's performance.Conservatives have told the country that the federal government is less useful than it thinks. Convinced, the country has concluded that stewardship of the government is not nearly as important as it was during the Cold War and when the government had confidence in, and money for, grand domestic designs.This diffidence of the electorate makes it difficult for Senator Dole to communicate a sense of urgency, or even get the electorate's attention.

WASHINGTON -- As Congress reshuffles in the wake of this month's election, three Maryland members of the Republican-controlled House are taking on additional duties.Baltimore County Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., a Republican, and Baltimore Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin, a Democrat, will both take seats on the Budget Committee, which fashions a blueprint for federal spending.Rep. Albert R. Wynn, a Prince George's County Democrat, is trading up from the Banking and Financial Services Committee to the Commerce Committee, which regulates most of the nation's business, ranging from securities to biomedical research.

WASHINGTON - In a victory for the White House, the Republican-led Senate blocked proposed cuts in education and job training yesterday, signaling a retreat by the once-emboldened GOP in its drive to shrink spending.Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, the party's likely presidential nominee, joined in the 84-to-16 vote approving one of President Clinton's top legislative priorities this year."For the first time in two years, we've seen the kind of coalition of bipartisan support which has been lacking, particularly on the No. 1 priority for American families: having good quality education for their kids," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat.

The 200 billion dollar question is, What would a balanced federal budget mean -- fiscal sanity or financial calamity?Republican leaders in Congress, forging ahead with their "Contract with America," have vowed to take the question to the states, three-fourths of which must ratify the measure to emblazon it in the Constitution. Democrats, however, want to know how the GOP intends to balance a trillion-dollar budget without devastating consequences to crucial entitlement programs, like Social Security.

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans yesterday unveiled details of their sweeping plan to revamp Medicaid, the health-care plan for the poor, by turning it over to the states, eliminating most federal regulations and capping federal spending.Although the plan provides $182 billion toward balancing the budget in seven years, House Speaker Newt Gingrich denied that Republicans want to cut Medicaid. Calling the proposal "absolutely historic," he said it would increase annual federal Medicaid spending by 39 percent over the next seven years.

Johns Hopkins must be the only university for which a switch in federal spending from weapons development into education is a disaster.

Gov. Martin O'Malley is expected to unveil a plan today that would quickly spend more than $350 million in federal money on Maryland transportation projects, a day after President Barack Obama signed a huge stimulus bill that will send a flood of money to the states. In an announcement expected this morning, the Democratic governor will ask a state spending panel to approve the overhaul of a Laurel MARC station as a symbolic start to using the $3.8 billion windfall that is part of Maryland's estimated share of $787 billion in federal stimulus funds.

Federal spending in Maryland - a key engine for this government-town state - rose faster in the 2006 fiscal year than it did nationwide, according to a new tally released yesterday. Total spending, which ranges from salaries to Social Security checks to spy drones, jumped nearly 10 percent to $75 billion after accounting for inflation, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Spending in the United States as a whole rose a more modest 4 percent. Despite that trend, the Census Bureau said the amount funneled to contractors doing work in Maryland, an important part of the state's economy, fell for the first time since just before the 9/11 attacks.

WASHINGTON -- Maryland companies have received a windfall in federal contracts during the Bush administration, thanks to a White House that has tried to restrain the size of bureaucracy even as government spending has surged. An increasing reliance on outside companies and consultants to do the work of government secured fourth place for Maryland in per capita spending on contracts in the United States, behind only the District of Columbia, Virginia and Alaska. The figures come from a new public database containing the most accessible information yet compiled on the flow of federal dollars.

Maryland's lawmakers need to pay close attention to the state's dispute with the federal government over Medicaid. Maryland has been using a combination of state and federal Medicaid dollars to pay for a variety of services for children in special education. The federal government is now saying some of these payments were improper and wants its money back. This disagreement illustrates an often-overlooked fact about Medicaid: The federal government is looking for ways to reduce its Medicaid spending.

Two separate reports showed up in my in-box last week. And while they were seemingly unrelated, and their near-simultaneous arrivals were coincidental, each reinforced the point of the other. The first, by the nonpartisan Urban Institute, found that the share of domestic federal spending on programs to aid children age 19 and younger declined from 1960 through last year, from 20 percent to 15 percent. While the money spent on children during those 4 1/2 decades increased sixfold in inflation-adjusted dollars to $333 billion a year, the report found that the rise was dwarfed by the increase in spending on nonchild portions of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Last week's news that the federal budget deficit will be smaller than expected this year is roughly comparable to the crew of the Titanic learning the ocean liner is sinking more slowly than feared. A dramatic rescue is nonetheless necessary to avoid disaster. President Bush and the Democratic-led Congress now share the joint objective of balancing the budget by 2012. But that can't be done without retiring at least some of the president's tax cuts, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The failure of Congress to pass new budgets for the current fiscal year has produced a crisis in science financing that threatens to close major facilities, delay new projects and leave thousands of government scientists out of work, federal and private officials say. "The consequences for American science will be disastrous," said Michael S. Lubell, a senior official of the American Physical Society, the world's largest group of physicists. "The message to young scientists and industry leaders, alike, will be, `Look outside the U.S. if you want to succeed.

Over the last six years, Democrats and Republicans in the nation's capital have behaved like the late coach George Allen of the Washington Redskins, whose owner lamented that Mr. Allen had an unlimited budget, yet managed to exceed it. But the Democratic takeover of Congress may have begun a new era in which the two parties compete to see who can squeeze a nickel hardest. Administration budget director Rob Portman said the other day that President Bush will not hesitate to use his veto to keep Congress from overspending.

WASHINGTON -- Under pressure from the recent growth in spending and federal deficits, the House approved yesterday a measure that would give President Bush a line-item veto. Republicans said it would help him slash wasteful spending and delete expenditures for specific projects from bills. Congressional Republicans have been facing demands from fiscal conservatives in their party to rein in federal spending, which has grown rapidly with the GOP controlling the White House and Congress.

WASHINGTON -- In the name of fiscal prudence, Congress has huffed and puffed over the last few months to reduce federal spending by $40 billion over five years while simultaneously planning to erase these savings with additional tax cuts slated to be at least twice as big. Taken together, these two actions will increase the federal budget deficit, already hovering around $300 billion a year. There is widespread agreement that federal budget deficits - projected to explode as the baby boomers retire and health care-driven entitlement costs soar - pose grave risks to the U.S. economy.