O'Malley's Fiscal House Of Cards

The Maryland governor has increased spending by $10 billion, yet he still claims to have cut the budget

Gov. Martin O'Malley released his fiscal year 2015 budget this week, and once again he made his long used but false claim that he has cut the state budget.

The budget when Mr. O'Malley's first took office was $28.8 billion, according to the Department of Legislative Services; his latest proposal would spend $39.2 billion. The back of the envelope math tells us the budget has grown by $10.4 billion — an increase of roughly 36 percent. The legislature can cut from his proposal.

Where are the cuts? Well that depends on your definition of the word "cut." A normal person would take the word cut to mean spending less money than the previous year. But this is Annapolis, where the definition of a "cut" is merely a reduction in spending growth. You see, the state's leaders believe they are entitled to spend as much as they want, and spending any less than that is a cut.

This is how Mr. O'Malley can talk about simultaneously making both record spending cuts and record investments, i.e. spending.

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