November 27, 2006.Retiree health care benefits to cost Anne Arundel County billions, reports Stephanie Tracy in The Examiner. "Government Accounting Standards Board now requires both state and local governments to reserve millions of dollars annually to fund retiree health benefits, and include that money in their regular financial statements beginning with the fiscal 2008 budget that takes effect in July 2007.To comply with the new rules, the county will have to put aside an estimated $75 million to $137 million annually over the next 30 years, according to a county task force report."

November 25, 2006. New state senators receive committee assignments, reports Len Lazarick, in the Examiner. "Maryland Senate President Thomas Mike Miller Jr. gave newly elected state senators their committee assignments this week, but House assignments are still in flux, with many new and re-elected delegates meeting with Maryland House Speaker Michael Busch next week."

MTA Exclusive: Steven Milloy, publisher of junkscience.com, comments on Examiner article: "Deadline nears for clean car program recommendations. "Some thoughts," writes Milloy: ||| "1. Battery powered cars just shift the carbon dioxide emissions from the car tailpipe back to the power plant. So there is no "benefit" in terms of reduced CO2. ||| 2. Hybrids are notoriously cost-inefficient -- lifetime increased maintenance costs far exceed fuel efficiency gains. ||| 3. As Sen. Inhofe says, "Global warming is a hoax." ||| 4. Cars are not a major source of CO2. Even the Washington Post acknowledged in its editorial yesterday (Nov. 27)- "Regulating one relatively small component of the problem -- emissions by new vehicles in the United States -- probably wouldn't do much overall to stop global warming."

November 22, 2006.Editorial: State must craft innovative health plan, writes the Baltimore Examiner. "Passing an exchange-based health care law would make Maryland the second state in the nation to do so and a model for others to follow. Legislators must make crafting it their top priority when they return in January."

MTA Exclusive: Second Amendment advocate James Purtilo comments on Examiner's A firearms investigation unit, one year — and 1,000 guns — later. "Sgt. Berger is being coy with his interviewer. Taxpayers pick up the tab for this 'task force' to review almost all reports filed with MCPD (whether or not from a crime of violence.) When they find someone they think might possess a firearm, they work hard to create a legal case to justify taking the citizen's property. Pay close attention to what he says in the interview: Their focus is on confiscation. Nowhere does hemention how many crimes are solved. The truth is, the task force has illegally confiscated and destroyed firearms without legal authority, and - once again - taxpayers pick up the tab for MCPD to defend their actions in court - and pay costs for judgements against them. They are using the immunity generally afforded law enforcement officers in order to wage jihad on private ownership of firearms, and the Bill of Rights be damned. ||| We think most citizens would feel safer with more cops out on the street tracking down thugs based on violent crime, rather than sitting at desks fabricating excuses to track down citizens based on firearm ownership. ||| While the real snipers waged their war of terror in Montgomery County, the founders of this task force obsessively compiled lists of citizens owning firearms, knocked on their doors and confiscated their firearms, just as they do today. In fact, the real snipers repeatedly attempted to contact police, and their messages went unanswered, because police ignored real clues in order to grab guns. The snipers' last two victims died because of MCPD's fixation on gun control. Montgomery County's citizens will remain in jeopardy so long as their police target them, not violent criminals."

November 21, 2006. O'Malley resists $2 cigarette tax, Democrats favor reports the Washington Times. "Eighty of the 188 state senators and delegates elected Nov. 7 also signed a pledge during the campaign to support the tax increase."

November 21, 2006. Slots measure still has the look of a loser; Despite election, Assembly's opposed, O'Malley's indifferent, reports Andrew A. Green in the Baltimore Sun. "The cautious approach to slots is held by Republicans, too. Many conservative Republicans in the Assembly opposed expanded gambling before Ehrlich took office, but at his urging the GOP caucus became strongly pro-slots. In interviews, Republican delegates and delegates-elect still mostly said they support slots, but often with reservations.
||| 'One of my particular concerns is locating slots in already challenged neighborhoods and communities,' said Steve Schuh, a Republican delegate-elect from Anne Arundel County who will replace a slots opponent. 'I don't think that very stressed and impoverished communities can stand the additional stress on their families or their community fabric of gambling.'"

November 17, 2006. Republicans and Democrats debate cost of living, writes Kelsey Volkmann in the Examiner. "'Elected officials should focus on lowering residents’ cost of living,' said Larry Helminiak, a Carroll County Republican Central Committee member. 'There are a number of children who can’t live in the neighborhoods where they were brought up because they can’t afford it,' Helminiak said at an annual political debate this week organized by professor Tony Roman for his Carroll Community College political science class. Sewer hookup and impact fees on newcomers to pay for streets and sidewalks are penalizing residents who have lived in Carroll for years, he said."

November 9, 2006. James L. Gattuso of the Heritage Foundation asks: Who will regulate the regulators? "Behind all the hot rhetoric, this is the real issue in the Dudley debate: Should regulators be subject to strong controls to ensure that the costs they impose on Americans are necessary and no more burdensome than necessary? Or, to put it simply, should regulators be regulated? Coolheaded observers agree that government regulators need firm oversight. And Susan Dudley is well qualified to do that job."

November 3, 2006. Long-time MTA Chief BILL SKINNER Fights Potential Voting Missteps in Florida. 11,609 on voter rolls in Palm Beach County, New York, reports George Bennett in the Palm Beach Post. "Bill Skinner, the secretary of the Republican Club of Central Palm Beach County, said he obtained public voter records from the county and from New York and hired a programmer to find voters in one database who have the same first name, last name and date of birth as voters in the other."

November 3, 2006. Examiner endorses No-New-Taxes Pledge signer Anne McCarthy for state comptroller. "We have no reasonable choice but Republican Anne McCarthy. Happily, she is abundantly qualified for the post. But importantly, she is the only candidate running for Maryland comptroller who understands the job and communicates that understanding in what she speaks and write."

November 2, 2006. Bad Policies Never Die; They Just Move to Harvard, notes Merrill Matthews in Human Events. "But that’s not the way Mankiw saw it. Instead of seeing personal accounts as a positive way of ensuring retirement security while reducing the government’s financial liability, he asserted that they wouldn’t fix the problem. What was really needed was to raise theretirement age and cut the benefits".

November 1, 2006. Political revenge leaves rate-payers with the bill, report Peter Van Doren and Jerry Taylor in The Examiner. "The proposed merger between Constellation Energy and FPL was officially canceled last Wednesday. Opposition to the merger was a convenient outlet through which elected officials could express their outrage at the 72 percent electricity price increase for Baltimore Gas & Electric customers implemented earlier this year, even though the merger played no role in the sticker shock. In fact, political opposition to the rate increase and the merger are best understood as attempts by Maryland legislators to divert attention from their own role in the price increase."

Maryland loses ground in Small Business Survival Index. In 2006, the Small Business and Entrepreneurial Council (SBE Council) ranked Maryland 28 among states-- way below Virginia (ranked 14) --on the 2006 Small Business Survival Index. The SBE Council analyzes 29 major government-imposed or government-related costs affecting small businesses and entrepreneurs. Maryland has slipped from 25th place on the 2005 SBSI.

November 1, 2006 Many Kids Still Left Behind--States Show Weak Gains for Needy Students, Maryland gets D+ in student achievement, reports the Fordham Foundation. "'Many state officials have claimed credit for gains in student achievement,'said Chester E. Finn, Jr., the Foundation's president. 'But this study casts doubt on many such claims. In reality, no state has made the kind of progress that's required to close America's vexing achievement gaps and help all children prepare for life in the 21st Century. Nor are most states making the bold reforms most likely to change this reality. Real leaders will study these data, then focus on what needs doing, not what's been done.'"