Budget Pushes Job Creation, Boosts Rainy Day Fund

Gov. Martin O'Malley says his budget plan for the next fiscal year aims to boost jobs and protect the state from the financial uncertainty caused by what he described as a potentially self-destructive Congress that will consider deep spending cuts in the next several weeks.

O'Malley said he would increase Maryland's Rainy Day Fund from 5 percent to 6 percent of the state's $16 billion general fund. He's enlarging the state's fiscal cushion in anticipation of financial negotiations in Washington that have yet to play out. The increase of $153 million or more would create a Rainy Day Fund of about $921 million. Altogether, the Democratic governor's plan includes leaves the state with about $1.1 billion in cash reserves to help adjust to federal cuts.

"The reason for doing that is a safeguard against, you know, the hara-kiri Congress down the street and what they might do to our economy because of ideology," O'Malley said at a news conference.

Republicans, however, said the O'Malley administration has relied on federal money to balance the state's books for too long.
 More