Legislative Updates By Delegate Mike McDermott

Apr. 6th, 2013

Tax Dollars: Bail Outs and Monuments

Or

“Where the libs go to get their dough”

By Delegate Mike McDermott

 

 

Here’s a newsflash for those Marylanders concerned about government spending. This morning I arrived at my desk on the floor of the House to find an amendment to the Capital Budget Bill (HB-101) which calls for an appropriation of $900,000.00  to “…design, construct, renovate, and equip a facility for the relocation of Delmarva Public Radio…”.

This comes on the heals of an investment of $135 Million of increased Maryland debt to provide for a “library” facility at Salisbury University with over $100 Million of this money in this year’s proposed Capital Budget.

So it goes with Progressives and Liberals, all those who enjoy feeding at the public trough of everyone elses tax dollars. Here we have a radio station that needs public support from its audience and, having failed to receive it (even with a free massive media blitz) they are able to get Del. Norm Conway to pay the tab with taxpayer dollars.

I cannot help but wonder…are there other projects on the lower shore where we could have spent $136 Million this year? We have roads that are crumbling and local governments coming up millions short. We have US Route 113 that could be completed along with overpasses for $105 million…and then what would we do with the other $31 Million? We have school security issues and a plethora of local public projects where this amount of revenue could have been parceled out to the satisfaction of many.

Much of this type of capital shifting in Annapolis remains unknown on the lower shore. No doubt most taxpayers have no idea how much money is “appropriated” for these types of projects. In the day and age of digital electronics and advancing communications technology, we will spend $135 Million for a brick and mortar library on a college campus…after we pay for tearing down the current  building that occupies the space. We will appropriate $49 Million for “planning and design” and $52 Million for actual construction…and, of course, we will call it a “jobs project” where we will pay “prevailing wages” to contractors (most not from the shore or Maryland for that matter) as a payoff to the unions who control the Democratic Supermajority in the General Assembly.  So to add insult to injury, we will pay 30% more to build these monuments than we would in the private sector.

So it continues in Annapolis with no end in sight.