Larry Hogan is full of ‘hogwash and hypocrisy’
Budget Secretary David Brinkley explains Maryland’s failure to fund supplemental pension contributions.
Barry Rascovar has been covering Maryland politics since 1971. The topics and opinions in his Monday columns that appear first in MarylandReporter.com are his own. All of his columns appear on his own blog, PoliticalMaryland.com.
By Barry Rascovar
For MarylandReporter.com
Gov. Larry Hogan Jr. makes it sound like he’s riding to the rescue of Maryland’s underfunded pension program that has been continually “raided” by evil Democratic legislators in Annapolis.
What a bunch of hogwash. It’s pure Hogan hypocrisy.
Hogan’s stance — torpedoing a $68 million education appropriation to the state’s most populous jurisdictions and shifting some of that money into the state pension fund — is based on politics, not policy.
Indeed, Hogan is a late convert to the cause of pension-fund integrity.
Silent secretary
When legislative analysts went before House and Senate budget panels and proposed a 50 percent reduction in Hogan’s $150 million supplemental appropriation to the pension fund, the governor’s budget secretary not only failed to object but congratulated lawmakers for their assiduous work in responsibly paring Hogan’s budget request.
Not until it became politically expedient later in the session to slam Democrats for cutting the supplemental appropriation in half did Hogan belatedly turn into a pension-funding hawk.
Since then, he’s continually referred to Democratic lawmakers’ “raid” of pension money.
Another bit of Hogan flummery.
The pension agency got so offended at this misguided gubernatorial propaganda pitch that it issued a press release regarding “the mistaken impression that the pension fund had been ‘raided’ by the General Assembly during the recently-completed session. This is not the case.”
No dipping allowed
The agency explained that the dispute centered on how much extra should be spent to help the state more quickly reach full funding to pay for future pension payouts. The state’s required $1.8 billion budget contribution to the retirement account this year remained untouched.
Indeed, it’s illegal for the legislature or the governor to “dip into” the $45.7 billion pension fund. That money can only be used to make pension payouts. No “raids” are permitted. But you’d never know that from listening to the governor’s spiel.
Hogan’s pension purity pursuit was his way of diverting attention from his other action — denying important state dollars to Baltimore City and other high-cost subdivisions to help them avoid layoffs or cuts in school programs.
He said it would be “absolutely irresponsible” to give that money to the schools instead of pouring it into the pension fund.
He’s got his priorities reversed.
The greatest immediate urgency is bolstering education achievement in distressed communities like West Baltimore. That takes money.
Further fortifying the state’s pension program can be done more gradually over the next decade or two.
Harsh consequences
Especially in light of civil unrest in poor, racially blighted Baltimore neighborhoods, Hogan’s decision to yank $11.6 million away from the city school system seems short-sighted and counter-productive.
The consequences of his action could be quite harsh when the General Assembly meets next January. This slap in the face to Baltimore schools won’t be forgotten. Nor will legislators from Prince George’s and Montgomery counties forget Hogan’s slight, either. They lost a combined $37 million in school money.
The governor’s next big decision could be the fate of the two mass-transit lines affecting those three major jurisdictions — the east-west Red Line in Baltimore and the Purple Line in the Washington suburbs.
His actions on the two lines could prove pivotal in his dealings with Democratic lawmakers. Deep-sixing either project will prompt an uproar. Yet Hogan is intent on appeasing his conservative base by finding ways to sharply reduce mass-transit costs.
He’s playing with political dynamite.
If he sets off a Democratic explosion over the fate of the Red and Purple lines, the resulting fallout could cripple Hogan’s efforts to constructively deal with the General Assembly over the next three years.
Judging from his rejection of supplemental education aid, this governor seems determined to restrict Maryland’s future spending habits at all costs. His goal is to lower taxes. Everything else is secondary.
Barry Rascovar’s blog can be found at www.politicalmaryland.com. He can be contacted at brascovar@hotmail.com
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