economy

Six candidates are running for three seats on the Westminster Common Council in the May 12 election. Three of the candidates are incumbent.

Schools, commissioners dialogue on school budget helps

Robert Reich: If the Trans-Pacific Partnership is enacted, big corporations will make out like bandits at our expense.

This month, the trade writing committees of the Congress announced new legislation designed to advance human rights through trade. But the bill does not say what human rights the Congress includes, how policymakers will use free trade agreements to advance human rights, or explain how the U.S. will assess whether these human rights are being adequately respected.

Perhaps if there is nothing to hide — if the fracking drilling practice truly causes minimal to no environmental impact — then maybe it's time for drilling companies to let Maryland really get to know them? And not just on the economic level, but on a deep, environmental level.

A detective from the Carroll County Sheriff's Office began working out of the State's Attorney's Office this week as a part of a new economic crimes partnership to streamline traditionally complex investigations.

Congress has produced a reasonable, bipartisan compromise on 'fast track' trade authority

Former governor Martin O'Malley laid out his five-point plan for improving the country's economy on Thursday, continuing to strike the populist tone that has marked the run up to his expected presidential campaign.

Now that Hillary Clinton¿s campaign-launching video has run its one-day course of novelty and interest, maybe we can start to assess it with some perspective.

Liberal arts schools are enduring an unrelenting attack in the public media. Critics of higher education rail against the excessive cost of a college education and the high rate of student debt and default. In linking college completion with potential income and job skills, liberal arts majors have fallen prey to the old question of "what can you do with that major?"

As fans gear up for what they hope will be a fourth consecutive winning season for the Orioles, the team and businesses hope to carry over success from 2014 into the new season.

Obama's leap of faith on Iran

After pushing through the largest series of property tax cuts in the city's history amid the most challenging economic times in generations, I find myself in the odd position of having my commitment to property tax cuts being questioned because my finance department's preliminary budget recommends a one-year pause. Let me be clear: I made a promise to deliver a 20-cent property tax cut for residential homeowners by 2020, and that's a promise I fully intend to keep. There is no backsliding, and

Soon, few will be able to afford new tech gadgets because technology will be supplanting our jobs, says Robert Reich.

Maryland employers added 500 jobs in January, a marginal gain dragged down by losses in the leisure and hospitality industry, according to federal data released Tuesday.

U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez said plans for a a new light rail line in Baltimore should move forward in a speech in Baltimore Monday that promoted the Obama administration's economic agenda.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake plans to focus much of Monday's State of the City speech on a plan to bolster small businesses, including more funding for the city's Small Business Resource Center and $1 million for an "innovation fund" to help small firms acquire the latest technologies.

There seems to be a great deal of confusion about what Gov. Larry Hogan's Agriculture Phosphorus Initiative really contains, and I would like to clearly state the facts about how we plan to address phosphorus.

The fact is, trade agreements are no longer really about trade, writes Robert B. Reich.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake on Wednesday defended the city¿s economic growth strategies -- and said Gov. Larry Hogan's decisions are largely to blame for the $35 million cut to state aid for city schools.

Republicans seem confused as to whether they should stick to the theme that the economy is still weak — which they've been claiming since President Obama took office, even though the Great Recession was created on their watch — or whether they should acknowledge the obvious sharp improvement in the economy today and somehow take credit for it.

Havre de Grace's water and sewer fund remains in financial trouble as city officials and Water and Sewer Commission members look for ways to raise enough revenue to operate the municipal utilities and pay down a $27 million debt incurred to expand the wastewater treatment plant.

House appropriations chairman is wrong to think that Maryland can grow itself out of budget problems

Maryland employers added an estimated 11,000 new jobs in December, driving the state's unemployment rate down a tenth of a percentage point to 5.5 percent, according to data released Tuesday.

Washington's longtime budget woes require both tax reform and reductions in non-discretionary spending

Coping with climate change

Obama agenda will come to pass even if it takes another decade

Republicans have a credibility problem when they way they want to address income inequality, says Robert Reich.

President Barack Obama outlined an aggressive agenda in his State of the Union address on Tuesday that drew a sharp contrast with the new Republican majority in Congress and set up the potential for a tumultuous two years leading into the next presidential election.

Crumbling roads, bridges and tunnels

Over the next several weeks and months as the budget making season unfolds in Harford County, there will be much discussion of government finance, to include calls for increasing tax rates, as well as demands that taxes be cut.

As Maryland companies were interested in Cuban prospects when President Jimmy Carter eased some restrictions in the late 1970s, they are again watching to see how new developments unfold.

The governor-elect's current assessment of Baltimore being in decline is far off base. The accomplishments of the last few years show Baltimore has turned a corner and is being primed for the type of growth the governor-elect hopes to see for all of Maryland.

Is the American economy finally out of the woods, asks Jules Witcover.

States that want to become magnets for new businesses, or strengthen their position as such, must focus on eliminating harmful taxes that stifle economic growth such as income taxes and estate taxes. Maryland — with a 5.75 percent state income tax, large local income tax add-ons, a state estate tax and an incoming Republican governor — has an unprecedented opportunity to join the ranks of pro-growth states by passing a law to cut taxes equal to increased revenues from passage of a

Republicans have not shown a particular affinity for facts in their economics or public policies.

Harford County's new administration is consolidating all its economic development agencies under one roof in a shopping center on Route 40 between Aberdeen and Havre de Grace that is owned by two political supporters of County Executive Barry Glassman.

Everybody loves cheap gas ... except environmentalists, the oil industry and Tesla.

Glendening helped Ehrlich inherit a more stable budget; O'Malley needs to do the same for Hogan.

The financial problem Gov.-elect Larry Hogan has described as "a crisis" worsened on Monday as state officials announced Maryland's budget shortfall is even larger than previously thought.