Maryland Priorities -- Or Not
The Maryland General Assembly is likely to pass a budget this weekend, as House and Senate negotiators finish resolving the differences in the budgets passed by their respective chambers. The outcome of these negotiations will clarify the priorities of our elected officials.
The budgets proposed by the governor and passed by each chamber all would leave substantial surpluses to carry over and use in future years (most notably, next year, an election year). This surplus is achieved largely by cutting more deeply than is needed in next year’s budget.
These cuts allow us to see what are NOT the priorities of our elected officials.
For example, the governor and both chambers have proposed removing 3,000 kids from the Medicaid rolls beginning July 1 of this year. In this case, making the surplus $5.5 million bigger ranks as a higher priority than providing health insurance to kids. See the opinion piece written by Montgomery County Council President Tom Perez, or our Budget Brief on this issue.
As an interesting contrast, both chambers unanimously passed a "sales tax holiday"–one week before school starts in 2006 where we don’t have to pay sales tax on clothes and shoes. This holiday will mean that in FY 2007 the state will collect about $5.4 million less in sales tax.
Isn’t that nice–we don’t have to pay sales tax on new shoes for a week, and 3,000 kids get to lose health insurance. Of course, no one put these two issues next to each other and picked the one that was more important, but that’s kind of how it works with taxes and spending.
Both chambers would take about $45 million away from local governments (highway user fees– this money is supposed to be used to fix roads, but it provides relief to local governments so that they have more funding for schools, libraries, police, trash pickup, etc.).
Both chambers would cut about $6 million provided to local governments to offset the cost of special education.
We have yet to see how they resolve differences in land preservation. The governor and the Senate wanted to raid Program Open Space funding to use for other general fund spending; the House wanted to keep those funds for their intended purpose–land preservation.
The biggest losers, it appears, could be state employees (who will get teeny raises and pay more for their health insurance), health care providers (who will be paid less for providing health services), and all of us once the providers pass the costs onto us via higher payment rates and insurance premiums. MBTPI
The budgets proposed by the governor and passed by each chamber all would leave substantial surpluses to carry over and use in future years (most notably, next year, an election year). This surplus is achieved largely by cutting more deeply than is needed in next year’s budget.
These cuts allow us to see what are NOT the priorities of our elected officials.
For example, the governor and both chambers have proposed removing 3,000 kids from the Medicaid rolls beginning July 1 of this year. In this case, making the surplus $5.5 million bigger ranks as a higher priority than providing health insurance to kids. See the opinion piece written by Montgomery County Council President Tom Perez, or our Budget Brief on this issue.
As an interesting contrast, both chambers unanimously passed a "sales tax holiday"–one week before school starts in 2006 where we don’t have to pay sales tax on clothes and shoes. This holiday will mean that in FY 2007 the state will collect about $5.4 million less in sales tax.
Isn’t that nice–we don’t have to pay sales tax on new shoes for a week, and 3,000 kids get to lose health insurance. Of course, no one put these two issues next to each other and picked the one that was more important, but that’s kind of how it works with taxes and spending.
Both chambers would take about $45 million away from local governments (highway user fees– this money is supposed to be used to fix roads, but it provides relief to local governments so that they have more funding for schools, libraries, police, trash pickup, etc.).
Both chambers would cut about $6 million provided to local governments to offset the cost of special education.
We have yet to see how they resolve differences in land preservation. The governor and the Senate wanted to raid Program Open Space funding to use for other general fund spending; the House wanted to keep those funds for their intended purpose–land preservation.
The biggest losers, it appears, could be state employees (who will get teeny raises and pay more for their health insurance), health care providers (who will be paid less for providing health services), and all of us once the providers pass the costs onto us via higher payment rates and insurance premiums. MBTPI
1 Comments:
Wow. The governor and the general assembly want throw poor kids who are LEGAL immigrants off of Medicaid? To save money so that next year they can add a few things to the budget and get some more votes? Who is going to campaign on this idea?
Thanks for sharing this information.
By marcos, at 10:18 AM
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