By | Farrell Keough
Recent events make clear what is going on in Maryland and how our state is trying to cover up their policies which are detrimental to business. The bribing of Bechtel to remain in Maryland is just one example of how these principals will play out.
State and local governments are generally lagging indicators of the condition of the economy. In other words, when the national economy begins a down-turn, it often takes a couple of years for states and local governments to feel the impact. We are at the point where these effects are happening to our state and local governments.
For instance, the recent Jobs Bill being promoted by the Obama Administration is more about funding state and local governments than creating incentives for new (private sector) job creation. Vice President Joe Biden reflected upon this truth recently – if this bill is not passed, more murders and rapes will occur. The basis of this perspective is that states and local governments have exploited all their resources (i.e. our tax dollars) to fund basic necessities like law enforcement and are now reliant upon yet more stimulus funding from the national government.
This scenario is no more evident than in the policies and actions of Maryland. According to the U.S. Labor Department, the Maryland unemployment rate rose from 7.3 percent in August to 7.4 percent in September. While we are still well below the national rate, this was the fourth straight month of increasing unemployment in Maryland. Remembering that state and local governments are lagging indicators, there are other events taking place throughout our state which forecast much more dire outcomes.
In what may seem to be an isolated occurrence, State Senate President Thomas V. “Mike” Miller is proposing that the University of Maryland, Baltimore be combined with the College Park campus. The precise mechanism for handling this merger is rather cloudy – to date it involves two presidents.
The option to merge university campuses may, on the surface, seem to be wise governmental policy – cutting back on duplicate administrative services, enlarging the reputation of university nationwide, and increasing efficiency between the interactions of the various colleges.
Read the complete article at The Tentacle.
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