David Craig Campaign releases business climate data showing dismal contrast
From Friends of David R. Craig:
Maryland Lt. Governor candidate and state delegate Jeannie Haddaway said Texas Governor Rick Perry’s media onslaught of the state’s business climate and job growth potential is well-deserved as the David Craig campaign for Governor released today a comparison of the two states’ business climates according to third-party sources.
Maryland’s average ranking is 32 compared to Texas’s 4 when compared to other states. Preventing Maryland’s free fall to the bottom quintile overall in the national business climate comparisons are factors including quality of life, education attainment levels and proximity to research and development facilities such as universities and federal government installations.
“Texas Governor Rick Perry understands something that the O’Malley-Brown Administration is in denial about -states compete with one another for jobs and economic development,” said Haddaway. “Raising taxes, fees and tolls 40 times that will remove an additional $9.5 billion out of the private sector economy by 2014 sends a loud message to other governors who are concerned about job growth that Maryland is easy pickings.”
The O’Malley – Brown Administration frequently cite narrow metrics in categories other than tax burdens in order to avoid responsibility for the damage they have caused in driving away small businesses at rates that are among the highest in the region and have left the state with just three Fortune 500 companies. These other metrics are largely based on benefits derived from world-class universities and a high concentration of research and development activity stemming from the post-World War II expansion of the federal government.
“Martin O’Malley and Anthony Brown have absolutely nothing to do with the number of PHD’s living in Maryland nor the federal government and university-sector involvement in medical research, cyber-security and information technology that has been going on for years. Yet they take credit for it every day as if they created Johns Hopkins, the National Institutes of Health and Fort Meade,” said Haddaway. “I am very concerned that as the federal government downsizes due to record debt, that ever-increasing numbers of working Marylanders are going to be left behind.”
Financial service firms, business media outlets, think tanks and site selection consultants routinely rank states’ economic development potential according to a variety of factors. The Craig campaign released the most recent annual business climate studies from Chief Executive Magazine, CNBC, Forbes, Moody’s and the Tax Foundation. Averaged together, Maryland falls 28 notches below Texas.
In some cases a comparison is not even possible, since Maryland is not included in top-performing states in two reports issued this summer. According to corporate relocation industry media outlets Area Development Online and Site Selection magazine, Texas ranks number one in the country.
Harford County Executive David Craig said the Lt. Governor will have a meaningful role in his Administration with economic development being a much-needed focus.
“Governor Perry’s visit to Maryland is a wake-up call to every anti-business politician in the state,” said Craig. “The rain tax alone has become a national embarrassment and one of the most blatant anti-business policies Marylanders have ever seen. My Administration will review, reduce or repeal any tax, fee and toll that impede job growth.”
I believe the KAL cartoon in the Sun puts the situation in Texas into proper perspective. Do the research on the quality of life statistics (schools, health care, wages, etc.) for ordinary Texans, and you’ll understand why Perry’s appeal might be attractive to corporate America (as opposed to ma and pa businesses).
The statistics are quite easily skewed when you count all of the illegal aliens in Texas.
So illegal aliems are why Texas has a 100% higher property tax and a 40% higher sales tax?
You glossed over that Texas doesn’t have a state income tax.
I’d gladly pay higher property and sales taxes, as those are applied to everyone fairly, in trade for eliminating progressive income taxes that punish the successful.
Kharn,
CDev didn’t gloss over it. He always leaves out facts that don’t support his Lib/Dem view. Maybe we need a recall petition in Maryland seeing how well it worked in Colorado.
Kharn, A progressive income tax rate does NOT punish the successful. Grandma, get out the bar of soap, ’cause Kharn’s been lyin’ again!
How is taxing someone at (hypothetically) 20% for every dollar they make between $50k and 100k, 25% for every dollar between $100k and $150k and 30% on every dollar over $150k not punishing the successful? The more you make, the more taxes you pay in proportion to your income, that is the exact opposite of promoting success.
Didn’t gloss over it. Didn’t mention it because the ad contains that fact in it and I assumed you could comprehend that. My point is that by the end of the day taxes are a wash for the individual and it seems you get far less in return for those taxes in Texas. For big companies not at all caring about the conditions of their employees, Texas is a fine place. If however you are a small buisness or you care about the conditrions your employees live in. Texas is not for you. Texas is doing this because their job situation sucks and they hope to attract buisnesses to bring jobs but not the employees. Texas does not have a balance budget requireemnt like we do and Perry has ignored that.
49 of the states have a balanced budget requirement, including Texas. The only state to not is Vermont.
Texas Constitution, Article 3, section49(b), states, ‘Except in the case of emergency and imperative public necessity and with a four-fifths vote of the total membership of each House, no appropriation in excess of the cash and anticipated revenue of the funds from which such appropriation is to be made shall be valid. No bill containing an appropriation shall be considered as passed or be sent to the Governor for consideration until and unless the Comptroller of Public Accounts endorses his certificate thereon showing that the amount appropriated is within the amount estimated to be available in the affected funds. When the Comptroller finds an appropriation bill exceeds the estimated revenue he shall endorse such finding thereon and return to the House in which same originated. Such information shall be immediately made known to both the House of Representatives and the Senate and the necessary steps shall be taken to bring such appropriation to within the revenue, either by providing additional revenue or reducing the appropriation.’
As for your assertion that Texas’ job situation sucks, you do realize that the unemployment rate in Texas is lower than that of Maryland.
Texas – 6.5%
Maryland – 6.7%
USA Average – 7.6%
And I would add without the continuing out of control growth of DC and it’s government, MD’s private sector job numbers would be much worse than that.
We need to recall O’Malley back to PG County and all the pepper bellies back to Mexico.
Where in the hell do you go to acquire data?
Mr. Moderate is correct. Additionally, (and by contrast to Maryland) many Texans don’t have health insurance, have an under-performing public school system, have some of the lowest wages in the nation and have an infrastructure that is deteriorating from lack of maintenance to to lack of funding (read: not enough revenue / taxes!). Hell, in some areas, they’re even letting public paved roads revert to stone roads. Now THAT’S progress, Texas style. So…if you desire to live in a state that is approaching third world status, PLEASE move to Texas. Once you get there (and realize the “benefits” of lower taxes) please remember what the brilliant Rick Perry said during his memorable presidential bid debate…..Oops!
As for me, I’ll stay in “Maryland, my Maryland” 🙂
Oh yea, and they have dangerous spiders and lizards! Okay – you stay in Maryland. Just don’t forget to turn off the lights when there are no longer enough taxpayers to support the welfare state that the MD politicians love to foster. It’s a beautiful place geographically, but politically, MD stinks!
On behalf of all the people of the great stae of Texas, we thank you Justin.
I agree. If people think Texas and PA are so great, why not go?
You will also ensure that there are no taxes to pay any government employee and starve all of the small business owners who no longer have patrons because you put all the people who buy their stuff out of work. Schools systems will have no money because you keep cutting taxes and then the people will wonder how MD cannot afford these things. Like Harford County right now. I stopped spending my money at many business because you are ensuring that my pay goes down every year. Tell those business owners losing money that your idea is a good one.
Craig has done so much for Harford county why shouldn’t he be elected to governor? Take for example his ” family & friends to work program” I have no doubt he’ll want to repeat that program when he becomes our next governor. So please consider this when you make your selection come election day.
This message was paid for by Mr Craig’s family & friends”
Thank You
I would support any MD. candidate that had half the pro business attitude of Texas. This states economy could be so much better if not for the anti business , tax and spend , pro- illegal , corrupt bunch we have had for decades. Dems have one shining light in Peter Franchot but he wont run.
According to Kharn Texas is far more pro-illegal and they seem to be doing well. Wasn’t it Rick Perry who proposed a DREAM act for Texas?
Texas is far from pro-illegal, but they know how to use the tax code to collect the revenue that we’re missing in MD. Everyone pays sales tax, and landlords pass the property tax onto the renters, when in MD the illegals are paid under the table and avoid the income tax to significantly reduce their tax burden. You can lie about your income to the state, but you can’t lie to Walmart about how much that TV costs to reduce the sales tax.
That is why Texas is successful.
And Kharn – let’s not forget who is not helping to secure that border along TX. The Feds won’t help so TX figured out how they could not only survive, but thrive. You’re dead right – the sales tax is the only way to collect a fair tax. You spend, you pay. You don’t have or don’t spend, you don’t pay! As for MD, they’re pushing up the property tax, income tax, gas tax, alcohol tax, sales tax and then sticking their finger in every taxpayer’s eye by adding fees for everything else.
Guess you should see some of the fees you pay in Texas! I mean building a billion dollar football stadium for high school makes so much sense!
Where can we read about this supposed billion dollar stadium?
He sure did. What fees are you trying, in some juvenile way, to connect to some fictional football stadium?
Maybe Craig and the Dagger should spend more time explaining why he wants the County to buy two EPA clean-up sites on the HDG riverfront for the highest appraisal and to his usual political cronies plus stick the County with the clean-up liability. Gov. Perry would do well to steer clear of this guy.
Most people I’ve met from Texas love the place and most people I know from Maryland would move if they could. Of course I really don’t know many Marylanders from P G Co. , Montgomery Co. or Balto. City so that may explain it. Everytime I buy a glass of beer and get taxed 9% I realize there is no hope for this state.
Hey Hydesmann, Stop complaining about the 9% tax on booze and move to Texas (where you’ll pay a higher tax on it!) And by the way….there IS hope for this state. That hope is, when you all the other “third world” proponant whiners finally move out of Maryland, the rest of us will be able to live in our good old blue state with the best schools, roads and income in the nation. Ahhhh, peace at last!
I’m guessing that you work for some government activity there Justin. All of you good old boys who have both front hooves in the public trough had better think about how many of your “third world proponents” leave MD there won’t be enough sucker left to pay for your salary and benefits.
Gosh knows you wouldn’t. You would leave everything to the for profit private sector because you believe that somehow when someone makes a profit they are doing it for the benefit of all mankind.
Texas the tax is 120% more! for that glass of beer and wine etc!
The tax rates for beer, wine, and liquor are all different.
For beer, per gallon, Texas is 20 cents, Maryland is 9 cents (plus sales tax for each).
For wine, Texas is 20 cents, Maryland is 40 cents.
For liquor, Texas is 2.40, Maryland 1.50.
This was as of March 2009.
Maryland does not charge sales tax on beer and wine only liquor. Texas does and has an added surcharge for planes
Cost of living is Texas is less than Maryland for individuals and for doing business.
Enough of your guess work Cdev. First off I double checked this latest piece of guess work/disinformation and Maryland charges 9% sales tax on ALL beer, wine and liquor. That’s by the drink or as a package. If you can’t get the info right on your own state, I’d just as soon not have you you telling other readers what goes on in mine. There is lot of info available on reputable web sites, try looking at a few of them before you run off at the finger.
That is our alcohol tax!!!!! Yours is much higher!!!!!
You’re arguing over pennies when many people are more concerned with larger issues, such as why should we have to tell any level of government how much money we make, where we work, the returns and banking details on our savings and investment accounts or the amount we spend on medical treatment.
The government has no need to know those details, that is why a sales and property tax model is better than one including an income tax.
Pennies really? I remember when the sales tax went up 1 cent and you would have thought O’Malley just taxed you to death….Wait that is what people are saying! Texas has a rate that is not 20% highrer but 120% higher. Yet they claim to be the easy tax state. MD makes no such claim! I see your point about Sales and Property Tax models.
You’re the one concerned about alcohol tax rates…
No I simply pointed out the rate was higher in Texas as an illustration that the rosey picture of a Texas being a Tax free Utopia that is being pushed is really a false narrative. Government will find a way to tax someone to pay for things. Who pays and what they tax are the only varriables! Craig talks about low taxes and lowering taxes. Yet he only lowers property taxes and not our really high Piggyback tax. Essentially he is only giving homeowners tax breaks. Do you think this is a good idea Kharn? Especially since you back the idea of no Income tax and a property/sales tax model.
Man oh man Cdev you are bound and determined to win the argument even if you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Texas applies the exact same sales tax on beer, wine, and liquor at the point of sale as it does for all other goods. The state sales tax rate is 6.5%, each jurisdiction is allowed to apply as much as 2% additional sales tax. At this moment the highest jurisdictional rate is 1.75%. That means that the highest sales tax applied in Texas on any drink is 8.25%. Your sales tax on all drinks is 9%. Now I realize that I came from the dumn old country schools in Texas and you got the rarified air treatment in the special schools in Maryland but I still can’t quite figure out how you get us paying 120% more for a Lone Star than you do for a Natty bo.
You have an additional beer wine and liquor tax before the sales tax. Our tax is in lieu of standard sales tax. You have a much higher rate than ours!
Understood CDEV – and how much do we put into this welfare state each year? That’s year after year after year, right? It makes a billion look small. Hey, if you’re satisfied here, that’s great. Many of us are not, but like Hydesmann correctly points out, it’s not always that simple to just up and move. There are many considerations and they often force a decision to stay (at least for some time) – job and family location and so forth. As soon as those issues are sorted out, I will surely swap out my tags for another State. Everything mentioned above will be considered when determining “where.”
See you fail to realize…..Texas doesn’t want you! They only want your employer. They want their employer to higher Texans who have no job and collect welfare to work your job!
Did you mean hire?
As Glimmer says many in Md would gladly pay 80 or 90 % tax on the the money they make as long as the nanny state takes care of them from cradle to grave. As long as they get their free (of course nothing is really free) cell phones, free computers (Gansler even wants to give the criminals in jail free tablets), free healthcare, free food, free housing, free childcare, free drugs, etc they’ll be happy. Of course with increased taxes comes increased loss of freedom because what the government gives they can easily take away.
Free Cell phones a former governor of Texas thought of that!
So What?
Very poor sentence structure.
I personally like the idea that I saw on the Suns website this morning. The 5 Western Maryland counties want to seceed from the state. I say Harford County and the Eastern Shore band together and get the hell out of here as well. I mean all we are is a revenue stream for the “Big 4” counties. Let them do it on their own and leave my money to do improvements in the area that I live!
We can’t afford to leave. Roderick’s column explains why.
Roderick is full of dung. Most of the project he references that benefited the western part of the State (as well as the rest of MD) are many decades old. His comparison to a divorce is bogus. If these counties stopped paying into the owemalley machine, they’d have more than enough money to take care of their own. I would completely support the move – it should be a shot across the bow to balance what is going on in states like MD. Our politics have been so skewed for so long, most of the counties in MD have no say in what happens to our State taxes – instead we bow down to PG, Howard, Montgomery, Baltimore City and the wevil empire…Annapolis.
Do you think the General Assembly or for that matter the US Congress would approve it? Without the approval of both it is Unconstitutional!
I understand His column, and more than likely he is right. However over and over the state as shown that if you do not live from Baltimore City south all you are is a revenue stream, you don’t matter, and shut up and deal with it. I find that to be a HUGE problem. I have have jokingly said that Harford Co./ Eastern Shore should petition Delaware to join their state, because the bottom line is we just don’t matter to the state until it’s time for tax collection, or voting season.
Quoting Rodericks shows a severe lack of ability to think.
Spending your time checking spelling shows yours!!!!!! BTW I referenced him not quoted him!! Know the difference!
Well perhaps he should correct his 1.3 billion in deficit the have. Instead they had multiple emergency sessions to pass a voter ID law and a Likely illegal anti abortion bill.
Why do you think it is unimportant to prove that only eligible citizens can vote and each citizen only votes once?
I think the only way Texas could improve their voter id law would be to require inked fingers for each voter. If the Iraqis and Afghans can figure out that simple tool to combat voter fraud, we should too.
Hey Kharn……let’s copy Iraq and Afghanistan…..Great idea! 🙁
Voter fraud is a non-issue, promoted by extreme Re-Bubba-cans to disenfranchise voters. The real issue is the disenfranchisement of the electorate! 🙁
Two words – Wendy Rosen.
And let’s add a third word – ACORN.
All of which would not have been caught by a voter ID law!
It sure suggests the willingness to commit voter fraud and at a very high level among liberals.
It seems both sides are willing to comitt this fraud. I could find you plenty of examples of both in the last few years. The lady in Nevada who voted twice, the congressman’s son in VA, The VA GOP who threw out registration forms, the group the FL GOP hired who filled out fraudulent forms, True the Votes signatures from Mickey Mouse etc. The point is NONE of this would be stoped by ID laws at the polls. Most voter fraud happens with absentee ballotts where one can obtain a large quantity of ballotts and do it from home. This is why mail ballotts are a bad Idea. A law requiring an ID and in person request to get an absentee ballott is a much better idea!
Thanks for proving my point for me – if there’s an equal willingness and an opportunity provided by sloppy, nearly nonexistant safeguards voter fraud will be committed plain and simple. I don’t want anyone’s right to vote infringed upon but nor do I want to invite the sort of chaos that exists with early, motor-voter, no ID, anything goes nonsense that some seem to be championing. It isn’t so much to ask a simple form of ID. It was amusing watching the howls of discontent in the media when the governor of FL created a task force to rid the voter rolls of names of dead people. If you want no further proof voter fraud exists there should have been no reason to get twisted over that.
Hey hey money tree is back at work I see. Long weekend or are you affected by the furloughs?
Space added just for you 🙂
I take as many long weekends as I like anymore. Thanks for asking.
Money tree a few points.
1) It is a big deal when you require a document that costs $350 and you can’t afford it as is the case in Texas to get your “free” ID. Or “free” ID’s are availible on the 5th wednesday of the month but the only 5th Wednesday does not occur between the laws passage and election day, as was the case in PA.
2) Texas is actually argueing in court that it is all about partisan politics. This is their actual arguement in court filings.
3) ID’s do not address any of the real problems that exist. Early voting does not create problems, we have had it, called absentee ballotts for years. Motor Voter does not create problems.
4) The Florida governor wanted to purge 180,000 names, he than widled it down to 2,600 names. Those 2,600 had to prove their citizenship and of the 2,600 only 85….yes 85 actually ended up being non-citizens. His list was sloppy and yielded a small fraction of names. Not the massive voter fraud he urged in fact according to a few supervisors most of the names never actually cast ballotts ever!
How do you get Texas’s voter ID costing $350? One of the accepted forms of identification is a Texas id card, which is issued to residents who do not have a driver’s license. The id card costs $16 to issue and is good for 6 years and can be issued by showing a birth certificate, social security card and any one of another list of documents (selective service card, vehicle registration, W2 or Form 1099, marriage license, medicare/medicaid card, etc).
Just about any citizen should be able to satisfy those requirements easily.
I’d love to see where PA limited free IDs to 5th Wednesdays, but given your accuracy on TX’s requirements…
That would be my question as well. I’d like some sorta link to the $350.00 per ID being claimed.
If you require a copy of your naturalization papers it can cost you a pretty penny ($345). You not only have to provide proof of identification but citizenship!
Naturalized citizens should have their naturalization paperwork.
Yes and if you lose it to get a second copy is $340. We are not talking about the actual costs in becoming a citizen. We are talking about costs for people who do not have paperwork availible to prove their citizenship. ID laws are OK if they are well thought out and well planned like SOuth Carolina and Indiana did. When they are designed to make it hard for people to vote and passed on short notice with little time to prepare like PA, TX and FL that is when they cross the lines. As I also said they do little to address the majority of fraud cases since most voter fraud is not carried out in person. Cases of people acquiring absentee ballotts for dead people or stealing absentee ballotts. With these laws being proposed I could vote early with no ID by writing a letter for an absentee ballot. No one asks me to prove who I am. MD has an ID requirement. It could be more stringent like perhaps once you proved who you were that data is stored for next elecction than you never need a new ID!
A citizen losing his/her naturalization paperwork is not the state’s problem, unless a state employee dropped it in the shredder, I bet the number of times that happens in a year can be counted on one hand.
You say they’re making it hard to vote, I say they’re using a process designed to prevent fraud.
SO why not create a process to stop absentee ballott fraud which is a much larger problem?
Cdev,
That is another area that should be handled, for example requiring in-person pick up for every ballot so the staff can verify id. Nursing homes, etc, could ask the department of elections send a rep to check residents on the facility instead of busing them to the office. Absentees should also have to show proof, such as a doctor’s note, airline tickets, hotel reservations, etc, to establish that they can’t vote in person on election day.
Kharn; That is great, but what about our military, foreign service, government contractors who are overseas and students?
Arturro either go and put in your request before you leave and I am sure the military could have arrangements made to process requests.
Cdev;
Thanks for being so predictably simplistic. Folks in the armed services and/or foreign service may not be in his or her home state for years on end. The annual ballot must be applied for yearly. You can’t just drop by the election office on your way to a 30 day leave. I agree with Kharn that more control needs to be in place every where. As far as documented cases of election fraud, they go on every year in every jurisdiction. In person fraud is the easiest by the way. Walk in and tell the poll person that you are the neighbor who died last year and see what you get. Elections that stand out as having been won by suspected fraud are greater in number than you think. Nixon had the 1960 election in the bag until the Chicago results came in. More people voted in chicago that year than filed tax returns. The election of Glendenning relied heavily on dead people voting in the Baltimore precincts. The system is controlled by the same good old bahoys who rig it. The Bush victory in Florida will always be in question. At the local level a few years ago the post poll polling reflected a 70/30 split in favor and the final results came out 30/70. And so on and so on.
Arturro my suggestion is as simplistic as suggesting requiring ID’s will not be difficult for some people! BTW in person fraud is far less common than people voting absentee. Those dead people most likely voted by absentee ballot. It is a lot less riskier and easier Instead of going to 1000 polling places send 1000 letters a few weeks before and vote from home 1000 times!!!!!
I don’t think it is unimportant however since 2000 There have been 9 suspected cases of in person voter fraud there have been an order of magnitude more of registration and absentee ballott fraud. None of these laws address that! In fact according to the Texas legislature and Texas AG the purpose of these laws is to keep democrats from voting!
And who with a pulse would believe that? Sure democrats could never obtain any sort of photo ID…. That’s the kind of pathetic tale we expect to hear from Sharpton or Jackson or maybe Biden…but here on the Dagger?
Texas made the same arguement in regard to their voting districts when they said it was not about race but partisan politics. The court disagreed than. THeir current arguement is that it is to stop democrats from winning. Plain and simple. The DOJ is argueing it is about race but the Texas AG is simply saying it is partisan politics!
“The redistricting decisions of which DOJ complains were motivated by partisan rather than racial considerations, and the plaintiffs and DOJ have zero evidence to prove the contrary,” the state writes in its brief. “It is perfectly constitutional for a Republican-controlled legislature to make partisan districting decisions, even if there are incidental effects on minority voters who support Democratic candidates.””
“The court disagreed than. ” Could you help a poor old country boy from Texas undersatnd this statement? I guess having the highest rated public school system raelly helped you, eh?
And what do you think MD does when redistricting? They draw districts attempting to limit the viable opposition. If it weren’t for being drawn over a map of Maryland, the current congressional districts would qualify as abstract art for how they intertwine and weave around each other, ensuring as many districts as possible touch liberal strongholds to negate suburban and rural voters. The state-level districts are even worse, boundaries being moved solely to include prominent politicians houses so they either have to move or fight an entrenched incumbent, running down the median of the highway or magically across the bay, etc.
You’re just upset that it is the Republicans in charge in Texas and not the Democrats.
Yes the court rejected Texas’ argument that the redistricting was only a move to suppress democrats representation. An argument the Texas AG made more than once and is making now!!!! The court said that it was in fact an attempt to suppress minority voting rights!
Kharn we are talking Texas, Not MD. We had a referendum on ours and the majority liked it the way it was. Now if you feel it is Unconstitutional take it to court like people in Texas did!
As always on referendums, its not the actual situation that matters, but how you phrase the question. MD has had multiple headscratchers in recent memory where people have had to ask exactly which vote matches their position.
I think this last time was fairly simple on this question. That said with the apperatus in place that got a record number of signatures and the saturation in place for each item. Everyone who wanted to be was well informed! You couldn’t turn on a local station (or even national ones) without seeing an ad one way or the other for every question!
Cdev,
” the court rejected Texas’ argument that the redistricting was only a move to suppress democrats representation. An argument the Texas AG made more than once and is making now!!!! The court said that it was in fact an attempt to suppress minority voting rights!” – Which ruling are you specifically talking about? There have been a number of rulings over the years, including the ruling by the Supreme Court this year, pertaining to the voter’s rights in Texas.
I just moved back to Texas after living in MD for 11 years. The money finally got to me. There I paid nearly $1100 for a two bedroom apartment. Here, I have a three bedroom house on an acre of land…my rent??? $700/month. Gasoline is cheaper here, food is cheaper here, electricity is cheaper here and the only thing that has been higher is my car insurance because of a recent hailstorm. I will pay no state income tax here, can actually walk to my car without fear of being attacked in the parking lot and I am not having to pay for my daughter to play sports at school. So far, has been a good move for us.
Glad you’re happy. I think Maryland is one of the most beautiful places in the country. Mountains, ocean, the bay. So close to everywhere on the East Coast. Why do you still care what’s happening here?
We’re not talking geographic beauty here!! There are beautiful places all over this continent – I think we’d all agree about that, but we’re talking about the filth we call politics. And when you look around this great country, MD is among a select few (MA, CA, NJ) with a major problem of being run by one party in a way that no other voice is heard. Look at our US representation, State representation, Governor, etc. (don’t even mention Ehrlich!)
Wait Ehrlich was the Republican governor of MD. The MD GOP picked him, just like Arnold was the Republican governor of California, Romney the Republican Governor of Massachusetts and Christie was the Republican Governor of New Jersey. Would you complain about the inverse situation in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming?
It’s not a major problem, it’s only a problem because you don’t like the way the state is being run by the people who are elected by others you disagree with. I voted for Ehrlich the first time, because at the time he was a better candidate than Townsend. He was not the better candidate when he ran the second time.
Ahh yes, rather then address the out of control spending of money we dont have, you **** will only attack a person who is doing something about his states economy. Divide and deflect. Next they will want bailouts for the poor people who spend all of their money at the casino.
Ironically he is not addressing his own states budget deficiet but running it up with extra special sessions to deal with an abortion law which will most likely be declared Unconstitutional in order to esstablish moral conservative credentials for a presidential run!
Maybe he’s doing it because he believes murder is murder and wants to do the right thing for as many people as possible in his state? You’ll never know when a new idea is unconstitutional until you enact a law and someone takes you to court, you can’t ask the Supreme Court to issue an opinion on a hypothetical situation.
So…..he just came to this conclusion???? NO, he has always been pro-life. He could have introduced this legislation when the Texas GA was actually in session and not need to call 3 emergency sessions at added cost to the tax payer! The supreme court ruled similar and less stringent laws unconstitutional, like the North Dakota law. This is political grandstanding at the expense of the Taxpayer when they are running a massive budget deficit….Does that sound fiscally conservative to you?
Cdev,
The Supreme Court did not rule on the North Dakota abortion law, a federal judge did.
The last abortion case was Gonzales v. Carhart, which dealt with the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Act and the S.C. ruled in favor of abortion opponents. This ruling has led to the new laws being created, including North Dakota’s and Texas’.
It is interesting that many people think there is a bright line rule regarding the 28 week, third trimester, criteria. The S.C. never actually said there was a bright line right to an abortion before 28 weeks. They said, in Roe, that it was the viability of a fetus, which typically is at 24 – 28 months. This, of course, with modern medicine, has been significantly altered. The S.C., using Justice Blackmun’s criteria stated that after the point of viability, the state has an interest in protecting potential life and can limit, or even ban, abortions, except in the case where the mother’s life or health is at risk.
With modern medicine, is it inconceivable that a fetus would be viable at 20 or 21 weeks?
Did I say SCOTUS did? No, it is however ruled Unconstitutional until another court changes it!
Cdev,
“Did I say SCOTUS did? ” – Uh, yea. You actually did. You stated, ‘The supreme court ruled similar and less stringent laws unconstitutional, like the North Dakota law.’
“No, it is however ruled Unconstitutional until another court changes it!” – Actually, it is not unconstitutional, UNLESS a court rules it so.
Murder is murder unless it’s a death penalty case or the slow motion death of denying food and education to the poor.