For years, Republicans in the General Assembly have been carping that Democrats spend too much, but rarely have they said what they would do instead. This has frustrated Democrats to no end. Not only did Republicans vote en masse for huge budget increases in the last two years of the Ehrlich administration, but recently some have been complaining about some of Gov. Martin O'Malley's budget cuts, most notably the closure of a mental health facility on the Eastern Shore. The closest they've come to specifics has generally been an across-the-board spending cut -- a bad idea that fails to set any priorities. At other times, Republicans have overtly eschewed specifics, saying that if they offered any, it would only be fodder for Democratic demagoguery.
Sens. David Brinkley and E.J. Pipkin, then, deserve a lot of credit for the proposal they released today. It sets out two goals that are hard to argue with: making progress this year toward eliminating long-term imbalances between state revenues and expenditures and doing it in a way that does not lead to more tax increases. Their plan is specific, and many of their ideas are good. They seek to do too much too quickly, and some aspects of their plan would do disproportionate harm to the urban areas of the state -- which have few Republican representatives -- but the proposal deserves to be taken seriously as an impetus for discussion.
In an ideal world, none of the cuts Senators Brinkley and Pipkin are proposing would be desirable. But given the persistent structural deficit Maryland faces -- more than $1 billion a year for the foreseable future -- painful decisions have to be made. With that in mind, many of their choices are eminently reasonable.
Eliminating the Geographic Cost of Education Index from the Thornton education formula would save the state $513 million over the next four years. Designed to recognize the higher cost of education in some jurisdictions, it was not phased in with the initial Thornton money, and given the massive increase in education spending over the last several years and the degree to which K-12 schools have been held harmless from budget cuts, cutting it is worth considering.
The biggest item in the Brinkley/Pipkin plan, splitting teacher retirement costs with local governments, would save more than $2 billion over four years. It's also a good idea in theory. Local governments effectively set the size of the benefit, so they should share in the cost. Rather than making the change all at once, as the Republicans' propose, the state should set itself on a course to phase that idea in.
Another big ticket item, increasing state employee pension contributions from 5 percent to 7 percent -- $372 million in savings over four years -- is probably also necessary, given the state's unfunded pension liabilities.
Other choices the senators make, such as cutting grants to private colleges and universities, while not ideal given the state's reliance on a knowledge economy, are better than alternatives, such as deep cuts to social safety net programs. The same goes for ideas like cutting subsidies to the Baltimore and Ocean City convention centers, reducing arts grants and eliminating stem cell research grants.
But other ideas show why a true budget solution shouldn't come from just one party. The Republicans, who disproportioantely represent rural areas of the state, make several proposals that would be devastating to Baltimore. They suggest eliminating crime fighting grants, extending a freeze on police aid, eliminating a highway user funds grant to the city and capping the disparity grants that help Baltimore balance its budget. Those would be difficult blows at a time when Baltimore is already struggling with a large budget gap and would come on top of other proposed reductions in state aid.
Other suggestions they make appear to have less to do with balancing the budget than with furthering a political agenda. They would eliminate the state agency that ensures that state contractors follow the law requiring them to pay the prevailing wage ($700,000 a year), eliminate the Critical Areas Commission ($2.1 million) and preserve tax breaks for Maryland mined coal ($4.5 million).
Democrats called for a bipartisan summit on the state budget today in hopes of forcing Republicans to play their cards, and it looked for a time like the event would lead to no more than another pointless political showdown. But instead, the Republican senators produced something that acknowledges the difficult situation Maryland faces and offers reasonable ideas. In fact, it's hard to imagine that Governor O'Malley's administration hasn't at least thought about many of the same things. The Brinkley/Pipkin plan doesn't deserve to be adopted as-is, but it's not unreasonable to hope that it could play a constructive role in forging a bipartisan consensus on how to put Maryland's long-term budget in order.