This afternoon Senators on the Budget and Taxation Committee voted rapidly on hundreds of line items in Gov. Martin O'Malley's spending plan, making about $150 million worth of cuts.
Following along involved flipping between three different documents, straining to hear of legislative services analysts and trying to parse whether the body had said 'yes' or 'no.'
Keeping up required concentration. But it looked easy for Senator Nathaniel J. McFadden, a Baltimore Democrat.
When the Child First Authority came up for a vote, he objected to a $119,187 reduction. "Chairman, I'd like to keep this money," McFadden said. "The program provides valuable services in the city." Done. Money kept.
Later the Fine Arts grants were on the chopping block, McFadden raised his voice again. "They are essential," McFadden said. Instead of a $1.1 million cut, the committee acquiesced and only took $600,000.
He also led opposition to a $250,000 cut to Executive Branch agencies (cut rejected).
And he did not like a $1.1 million cut to the Graduate and Professional Scholarship program. "We have to leave some money in there," McFadden said. (Full disclosure: That one went by so quickly, we aren't completely sure what the committee did.)