Tag: martin o’malley

#rsrh Watch Gov. Martin O’Malley (D, MD) torpedo his Presidential hopes!

It’s quite fun to see:

Basically, O’Malley was asked if we were better off than we were four years ago, and he said something mind-numbingly stupid and career-blighting in response.  No, it’s not that he said ‘No.’  That’s just O’Malley being honest: everybody knows that the country’s not gotten better in the last four years.  No, where the governor screwed up was in saying “…but that’s not the question of this election.” O’Malley’s been swimming in the political kiddie pool that is a reliable one-party Blue State for just a bit too long if he thinks that he can get away with unilaterally defining the rules of the discussion.  The rest of us get a vote on what this election is about, thanks: and the Democrats don’t get to simply wave off questions that they don’t like.

Well, true, they can technically do that.  They just shouldn’t get upset when it turns out to be a nonviable election strategy…

Barack Obama badly flubs Martin O’Malley’s name in speech.

Jack O’Malley?  Sorry, Mr President, but the governor of Maryland is nowhere near cool enough for a name like “Jack O’Malley.”

…Yeah, I’m not really ripping on the President, here; it’s not like Governor O’Malley is either particularly interesting or particularly memorable. He’s just a placeholder whose major role in life is to be a horrible contrast to Republican governors; and if you asked me to pick him out of a lineup I’d be all “Well, it was about bloody time, really.”

Via… I’m not sure, actually.

Gov. Martin O’Malley (D, MD) proposes raising taxes on poor, homeowners.

If you’ve haven’t taken a look at Gov. O’Malley’s proposed Maryland budget yet, do so – and weep.  There’s enough idiocy in it for everybody to get a piece: more taxes for the poor (in the form of increased tobacco taxes*); more taxes for homeowners (caps on mortgage deductions) and other wealthy members of the upper professional class (caps on charitable deductions); and, of course, an Amazon tax (because this time Amazon.com simply won’t drop its affiliate program in Maryland in response, surely**).  But here’s the hidden time bomb:

In what O’Malley called one of his most “controversial” proposals, he recommended shifting half of the state’s $946 million tab for teacher pension costs onto the counties.

To help ease the pain of the shift, the state would pick up half of teachers’ Social Security costs, which the counties pay for entirely.

The change would save the state $239 million.

Continue reading Gov. Martin O’Malley (D, MD) proposes raising taxes on poor, homeowners.

DGA Martin ‘Whitebread’ O’Malley (D, MD) speaks on Republican racism!

So.  We got Maryland Governor and DGA head Martin O’Malley out there SNEERING about us awful, awful racist Republicans (for the full effect, assume that I’m fluttering my hands like I’ve got the St. Vitus’ dance):

Using Governor Rick Perry (formerly) of the RGA for that, too. You see, good old Martin here really, really respects the heck out of Rick, you understand; despite the fact that he’s voluntarily a member of a racist and prejudiced group like the GOP.  Isn’t that just… well, Caucasian… of Ol’ Whitebread O’Malley?

No, my sneer’s deliberate, too.  And much more justified.  Consider this:

  • The progressive, inclusive DGA currently being run by Whitebread O’Malley has precisely one racial minority among its members: MA governor Deval Patrick.  Apparently Democrats don’t like voting for ethnic minorities – at least, not statewide.
  • The racist, regressive RGA ran by Rick Perry?  Four: Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Susana Martinez of New Mexico, and Brian Sandoval of Nevada.  Odd how that happened, no?  – And so enthusiastically, too. Continue reading DGA Martin ‘Whitebread’ O’Malley (D, MD) speaks on Republican racism!

The RGA may be chuckling…

… (so sayeth Jim Geraghty, at least) at the way that Maryland probably will have to raise taxes to fix its budget shortfall, while Virginia will instead be trying to decide what to do with its budget surplus*: but as a Maryland resident I am finding that I don’t quite find the joke all that funny.  Particularly since Governor Martin O’Malley (D) is apparently planning to go for raising the gas tax again; which is to say, something unimaginative and counter-productive.

(pause)

Well, as above: so below.

Moe Lane

*I cannot wait for Tim Kaine to run for Senate next year, by the way.  I absolutely cannot wait.  And may O’Malley end up doing for Maryland and the DGA what Kaine did for Virginia and the DNC.

Martin O’Malley (D, MD) pushing for Amazon tax.

(Full disclosure: I am an Amazon.com Affiliate for Maryland.)

It’s still in the early stages – the Governor has started the paperwork process and Comptroller for Maryland Peter Franchot supports the idea – but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, and goodness knows that the Democrats keep doing precisely that when it comes to Internet taxes.  Franchot (who, as the Red Maryland podcast above notes, is likely running for Governor in 2014) is claiming that the revenue that Maryland would glean would be roughly $160 million; given the way that Maryland’s Democratic-controlled government has wrecked the state’s economy recently, that number is a glittering prize.

A real pity that it’s a mirage.  Continue reading Martin O’Malley (D, MD) pushing for Amazon tax.

WaPo: Top O’Malley (D, MD) official ordered document suppression.

[UPDATE]: Red Maryland is also all over this story: see here and here for parts 1 and 2.

(H/T: Jim Geraghty) Background: back in August, the state of Maryland inadvertently put up on its website something that everybody all already knew; which is to say, a report indicating that Maryland’s economy is horrible (if better than the national average, mostly thanks to its proximity to Washington DC) and there was no improvement from June to July 2010.  The document was swiftly suppressed (you can read a copy here), given that it directly contradicted official O’Malley administration claims that job growth had continued for five months straight; the administration claimed that 500 jobs had been added, but that’s the seasonally adjusted numbers. The non-seasonally adjusted ones give a loss of over a thousand – but the real point is that the O’Malley administration was spinning a stagnant economy into an improving one as part of its re-election bid, and got rid of a document that admitted that no, it’s a stagnant economy.

Now the Washington Post reports that the ‘state official’ that ordered the document withdrawn was… MD Secretary of Labor, Licensing, & Regulation Alexander Sanchez.  That’s a directly appointed position by the governor, by the way: which means that this was not your standard ‘internal bureaucratic decision’ kind of thing. If it had been, then Department of Labor, Licensing, & Regulation Communications Director Bernie Kohn wouldn’t have carefully established a then-internal paper trail showing that he didn’t trust the numbers, that he didn’t authorize the release of the document that produced them, and that it was not his decision to remove the document in question.  That last was all due to the political appointees, in fact.

In other words: there was a top-down decision to suppress critical job information for partisan political purposes, and the big question is: is Governor O’Malley lying when he says that he knew nothing about it?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Robert Erhlich for Governor.

#rsrh MD-GOV: Ehrlich, O’Malley tied.

Well, technically Bob Ehrlich is ahead by a point, but it’s really a tie:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Maryland finds Ehrlich with 47% support to O’Malley’s 46%. Two percent (2%) prefer some other candidate, and five percent (5%) remain undecided.

As expected, the rematch of the 2006 race has been close from the start and has been getting even closer as time goes on. In February, O’Malley led 49% to 43%, but by April it was a closer 47% to 44%. The two were tied last month with 45% apiece. Continue reading #rsrh MD-GOV: Ehrlich, O’Malley tied.

So, there’s this fake Governor O’Malley (D-MD) site…

O’Malley plays guitar, you know.

…found here, and it’s already earning its corn:

Surrounded once again by stupid people
Why the h[*]ll am I surrounded by stupid people???!!!!

Why have we been running ads and doing polls that tell people that Ehrlich is a lobbyist, only to have dumb[*]ss Travis Tazelaar tell the Baltimore Sun that we have no evidence that Ehrlich has been lobbying?

For those not following Maryland politics: former Governor Robert Ehrlich (R) has decided to have a rematch with current Governor Martin O’Malley (D), whose last four years in office have produced… well, I’m sure that he’s done something for this state, but I’m blessed if I can think of anything in particular.  OK, the unemployment rate has doubled, as has the tax rate – and, not oddly at all, the emigration rate of our richest citizens – but that’s not so much ‘for this state’ as it is ‘to this state.’

But, remember: O’Malley plays guitar. Continue reading So, there’s this fake Governor O’Malley (D-MD) site…

Maryland millionaires’ massive migration.

There is a glaring inaccuracy in the linked WSJ article on vanishing Maryland millionaires. Essentially, It is not “a two-minute drill in soak-the-rich economics:”

Maryland couldn’t balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O’Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were “willing and able to pay their fair share.” The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would “grin and bear it.”

One year later, nobody’s grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller’s office concedes is a “substantial decline.” On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year — even at higher rates.

It is a one-minute, fifty-second drill in soak-the-rich economics.  I was curious, and timed myself reading it aloud.  Admittedly, I talk quickly sometimes, but I made it a point to try to pace myself for this one.
Continue reading Maryland millionaires’ massive migration.