Still Ehrlich's Fault

Nearly 2 years after he left office, former Republican Governor Bob Ehrlich is still being blamed for the state's problems by current far-left liberal Governor, Martin O'Malley.

O'Malley, who intentionally never accepts responsibilities for his administration's numerous failures, took a shot a Ehrlich when asked about the state's current $432 million budget shortfall. Economists blame the general economic slowdown across the country in addition to the 20% sales tax increase endorsed by O'Malley as the reason for the consumer spending decrease and thus, decrease in collected tax revenue.

O'Malley creatively said that he asked "the people of Maryland to play a role in the solution", which means much higher taxes, mostly at the expense of the working poor and the middle class. His phrase can be reworded, "Please take a role in solving my spending problem by allowing me to steal and waste more of your hard earned money. Oh, wait. I don't have to ask you, I'm just going to do it and pretend that we are working together to build the future. You'll believe that BS, because I'm the pretty Democrat Governor!"

He pointed out that under his tyranny, the state's budget increased by "less than 4 percent annually– less than the Spending Affordability Guidelines set by the General Assembly– compared to 22 percent in the last two years of our Republican predecessors.” However, he failed to mention that almost all of that increase in spending under Ehrlich was the result of mandatory funding requirements, such as for health insurance and the school-funding based Thornton bill, both of which were pushed through by the tax-and-spend-happy liberals in the Maryland General Assembly. Remember their slogan: "Welcome to Maryland. What's in your wallet?"

Let's continue to point out that although O'Malley criticized Ehrlich for not fully funding Thorton (Ehrlich only funded the mandatory requirements, not all of the recommended funding requirements), O'Malley himself has failed to do the same thing - much to the joy of the tax-paying citizens who are now struggling to make ends meet.

O'Malley's apathy and "pass the buck" view on responsibility is not new. We saw this early on in his administration when he shruggingly said there was nothing he could do to stop the electric rate increase, this after fighting tooth and nail claiming he was going to stop it. And to rub salt in the wound, he allowed the rates to increase several more times, thus continuing to allow the deterioration of the standard of living of almost all Marylanders. But it's okay, 'cuz it's still Ehrlich's fault.

And now O'Malley is pushing hard to get the slots referendum passed so that he'll have more money to spend. More money. Our money. To Spend. And Spend. And Spend.