House Democrats Backslide on Senate Deficit Reduction Plan

The State Senate took heroic measures to slash $3 billion off of Governor Martin O’Malley’s legacy of $8 billion in structural deficits over the next four years. As reported by Andy Rosen of MarylandReporter.com, the Appropriations Committee of the House of Delegates has completed their budget proposals.  The result is serious backsliding from the Senate plan to curb state spending by capping mandatory formula increases in state law and thus obliterating long-term deficit reduction.

The House budget plan guided by Speaker Michael Busch and House Democrats restored a number of O’Malley’s original spending programs thus reversing reductions and long-term actions initiated by the Senate for deficit reduction. Approximately $2 billion was restored of the $3 billion deficit reduction actions made by the Senate. The net result is O’Malley $8 billion of deficits is reduced only to $7 billion under the House plan which will be presented to the entire body for floor debates this week.

A summary of these budget decisions includes:

·         Rejected the Senate proposal to transition and shift county responsibilities for teacher social security payments to the state and the state’s responsibility for teacher pension payments to the county so that there is an equal county/state sharing in five years.

·         Retained a controversial transfer proposed by O’Malley to strip $20 million from the reserves of the IWIF (state’s worker’s compensation fund) that was rejected by the Senate because of concerns that it was unconstitutional.

·         Restored stem cell research funding reduced by the Senate (O’Malley & House at $12.4 million/Senate at $6.2 million).

·         Eliminated the legislative scholarships program but kept the funds in the higher education need-based scholarship program

·         Removed Senate budget language requiring the Maryland Transit Administration to study alternative to the high-cost Red and Purple Line projects in the Baltimore and the Washington suburbs.

To read the entire MarylandReporter.com article: click here