Governor O’Malley, Comptroller Franchot Offer Differing Views on Budget at Pre-Session GOP Briefing

Every year, the Joint Republican Caucus holds a pre-session briefing on the Tuesday before Opening Day.  This year, we heard from both Governor O’Malley and Comptroller Franchot about their views on the condition of the state’s economy. 

To no one’s surprise, they offered differing views about how to address the state’s budget deficit.  I believe that the contrast between their two views will frame the budget debate that will occur in the committees and on the floor of the 2009 Session.

Governor O’Malley offered the view that the state does not have a spending problem.  I’m sure that view is shared by some legislators. To them, the state’s spending priorities are in order.  The only problem that we face is the dramatic decline in state revenues. From their perspective, a budget solution for this session should consist of spending reductions and stopgap measures (such as fee increases) to carry us until revenues are back on track.

Comptroller Franchot believes that the state does have a spending problem.  He stressed that higher taxes and fee increases are absolutely the wrong approach to resolve current budget problems.  He proposed that one “up-side” to a downturn in the state economy is that the administration and the legislature should take advantage of the opportunity this session for a top-to-bottom review of the budget to restructure how the state spends money to provide citizen services.

To the extent that legislators follow Comptroller Franchot’s advice – to conduct a comprehensive review of the budget to seek long-term budget solutions – the state will be better off and we will have a better-than-expected session.