Bracing For An Economic Shift In Maryland

Sen Augustine Discusses Deficit, Cost Of Living And More at Roundtable Meeting

By Raoul Dennis and Kristina Townsend // PHOTOGRAPHY BY AMIR STOUDAMIRE

In an eye-opening delivery to the Greater Prince George’s Business Roundtable Jan. 8, Maryland Senator Malcolm Augustine warned of the imminent deficit issue, the cost of living and the future of transportation in the state.

“I think you all have probably heard or seen in the news,” Augustine began. “Some of the projections about what we will see in the future as it pertains to our budget, and that there are projections of days down the line where we're going to see some tapering off on some of the money that we have. It's suggesting that we're going to have a deficit.”

The statesman continued: “Then, since we have a deficit in front of us, there's two different things that you can do when you have a deficit. You can raise taxes if you feel like that's what you need to do, or you can look to tighten the belt and figure out how to best use the money that we already have. I can share with you that from the Senate standpoint, we're looking to look closely at the money that we already use and spend inside our state of Maryland, those hard tax dollars that we receive, to figure out how we can work and meet the priorities that we have within the budget that we currently have. That's where we start, for certain.”

“For me, and I know for Senate President Ferguson, he and I talk about this a lot, the bar is high before we start to raise more revenue in Maryland. The reason that I feel about that, for me, is that we don't live in a vacuum here. It's a regional economy. We have Virginia that we have to contend with, we have Pennsylvania, we have Delaware, so we have to stay competitive in where we are.

“In years past, Maryland has not been as competitive as it should be. This is an effort that we're continuing to work on. Governor Moore understands that. He's worked with us too on that. He understands that we need to be a far more competitive state. We're clearly going to stay focused on that. Now, if we need to, because our priorities that we have set out require more revenue, we will do that. Not that we won't. The first step, for sure, is to make sure that we look within the budget that we have, which is a very large budget. The Maryland state budget is $60 billion. It's projected to be around $60 billion.”

Since the meeting Governor Moore presented his new $63 billion budget. The proposed budget does not raise taxes.

  Augustine also addressed concerns about the cost of living across the state. “Living is high here in Maryland, and we want to do something about that,” he began. “One of the main drivers of that is housing affordability. We're working with the governor. The governor's already got a pretty comprehensive set of concepts, so we're going to have to work through, because there are some things in there that may or may not work, but we're going to work with them on that.”

 The District 47 Democrat also discussed the future of transportation and mobility.

 “Transportation and mobility, particularly for where we live, is a key driver to whether or not how people are going to come to where we live here or to stay. It's a big driver, and it really touches a whole host of other issues,” he says. “When you start talking about the climate and those things, it's all tied in together. The legislature put together a commission to look at the future of transportation and how we pay for it. Because right now, the old mechanism of paying for our roads, and our bridges, and our transportation to gas tax is going down, which we understand. More people are using electric vehicles.

 Really, another real key driver of that is that the cars are more efficient… our roads are still, they need to be repaired. We still need to be able to move. We still need the mobility to get around. That includes public transit. For us, at least here in Prince George's County, a very important part of that is WMATA. WMATA's got a serious budget shortcut and we're already working on legislation to close as much as we can. There will be some service cuts. There will be probably a fair increase as well that is a part of that.”

  The governor has since addressed the transportation issue by restoring $150 million in proposed cuts to transportation.