Nothing to be proud of

Speaker Mike Busch seems to be happy with himself if you believe this quote:

"The governor took it all on his shoulders, and the legislature pretty much followed. . . . We've basically, in my estimate, taken a full legislative year of work and condensed it into 20 days."

I'm not sure what is more offensive to the process of representative government, that the Speaker is proud that the Legislative Branch took its marching orders from the Executive Branch, or that the Legislative Branch basically inflicted a number of financial calamities on the taxpayers of the state without due and thoughtful consideration.

Senate Minority Leader David Brinkley is much more accurate:

"Common sense and reason went out the window just to give the governor a victory...I think this whole thing has been a debacle, and taxpayers are stuck holding the bill."

I think that the Senator was being polite by merely calling it a debacle. It reality, what we have just been witness to is one of the more crass victories of special interests over taxpayers that we have seen in our state. To the legislative leadership, it was more important to make the Governor look good, to grow the size of government, and to make sure taxpayers have less money in their pockets than it was to do what was right and what was proper.

Maryland Democrats manufactured a crisis of their own failures. And as we warned repeatedly, we the taxpayers get shafted....