Monday, November 26, 2012
Election season has ended and with its conclusion, the
promises that politicians courted voters with have moved into their next stage –
being broken.
I had a bittersweet moment last week when I caught a glimpse
of this The Examiner headline: Maryland Faces Years of Hefty Budget Gaps. This a mere two weeks after Election Day. Fourteen Days after a majority of Maryland
voters approved bringing a casino to the National Harbor. A decision that was supposed to bridge budget
deficits.
My first reaction was to write about how I knew building
another entertainment venue in Prince George’s County would do nothing to
reconcile the difference between ever-increasing tax revenue, supposed
budgetary needs and ever decreasing quality of living in the county. But my next thought was about what’s on the
line; if the county is not making money, it has to enforce cutbacks. These will undoubtedly even further diminish services
for our youth.
In the face of this, I didn’t expect officials to start
preparing to reveal the okie doke they just pulled so soon. Two weeks and Governor O’Malley has gone from
TV ads requesting voters approve Question 7, to the front page of the newspaper
admitting the measure he assured would help our community isn’t enough.
I’m no accountant and I don’t know what happened behind our
local political scenes, but I’m pretty sure it takes longer than two weeks to
balance a multi-year budget. I’m going
to leave it at this, because like I said, I’m dealing in assumptions, but I’m
going to venture to say, officials knew about this continuing deficit while
they were convincing voters to approve Question 7.
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