Like an impassioned Gregorian chant, one of my colleagues bellows some version of the following refrain “Where does all the money go?”
Where, indeed, does all the money go? You know, all that money the state needed to eliminate the structural deficit in a budget that hasn't been created? You know, the money Gov. Martin O'Malley needed so desperately that he had to call the special legislative session last fall that created Del. Pat McDonough's favorite (and probably, most apt) label for O'Malley - Taxzilla?
There was a time when Del. William H. Cox Jr., before the days when elected officials, wannabes and their hangers-on worked feverishly to craft what have been dubbed “sound bites,” was famously quoted locally for his “We brought home the bacon!” boast.
Cox is gone (if only from his elected leadership role) and so too are the days when Harford County's legislators brought “home the bacon.” I'm not sure what legislators — beyond those from the Big Three of Baltimore City, Montgomery and Prince George's counties - can say without impunity that they bring any pork products back to their home districts.
Look around Harford County and the rest of the state: our roads are crap, our school buildings are crumbling, the safety of our communities is cracked, all the while our taxes are crazy. Crazy as in careening toward places they shouldn't be going.
The state doesn't pay to maintain our highways, yet alone improve them. The state doesn't pay to improve our schools, yet alone build new ones. The state doesn't pay to adequately protect our communities, yet alone expand our police protection. There are countless other pet peeves — not taking care of our state parks, our waterways, our (add your own gripe about the state here) — about what the state government used to do with our tax money that it no longer does.
A few legislative delegations ago, Sen. Habern Freeman, fresh off of eight years as Harford County Executive and the annual balancing of the Harford County budget, tried to get an accounting of what he said was 10,000 unfilled state jobs. Those were jobs without people, without bodies, in them that burdened the state budget. He couldn't find out where they were, why they weren't filled, etc., etc. All he could find out was there were 10,000 open positions. Anyone with any basic budgeting at all knows that would be a great place to start — cut unfilled positions.
Of course, it didn't happen. Nor, do I believe, has anything so sensible happened with our state budget since. All I know, and I think many Harford County people feel the same way, is the state takes way too much of my money and I see way too little of it coming back to benefit my community. As this legislative session that opened Wednesday for its 90 days unfolds, perhaps we'll get more insight into exactly what happens to our tax dollars.
Where does all the money go? I don't know, but it's certainly not back to us in Harford County.
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