More Pension Follies With great fanfare, Governor O’Malley announced his 2014-15 budget. Three thick budget volumes were released. Nowhere in these volumes (with one minor exception) are any of the pertinent data concerning Maryland’s pension and employee health obligations disclosed. The re-design of Maryland’s budget documents carried out by the present budget secretary, Eloise Foster, […]
www.baltimoresun.com/ Maryland’s pension system has performed poorly for decades under two separate treasurers By George W. Liebmann 2:09 PM EST, February 19, 2014 Advertisement The state pension system is Maryland’s financial Achilles heel and has been for decades. All bond rating services have noted that rising pension debt endangers the state’s AAA bond […]
The O’Malley administration’s response to the real estate crash in 2008 was a characteristic one: kicking the can down the road. Lenders were blamed; foreclosure attorneys were blamed; everything was done to obscure the fact that many if not most of inner-city loans should not have been made in the first place, were frequently made […]
Maryland has, just, preserved its AAA bond rating, though with a negative outlook from Moody’s. Moody’s has issued a publication reporting that Maryland is one of the ten worst states in terms of the burden of pension debt, Maryland’s pension obligations being almost exactly equal to one year’s gross revenues, 99.5% of […]
Mismanaged Maryland Despite talk of reforms and budget cuts, Annapolis dabbles in excessive borrowing, noncompetitive projects and risky investments By George Liebmann6:00 a.m. EDT, March 11, 2013 There is a sharp disconnect between the image and reality of the O’Malley administration’s fiscal policies. The image features pension reforms, reduced structural deficits, […]
Captain of the Black Sox One of the more curious and notable decisions rendered by the Maryland Court of Appeals in recent years is its short opinion in Ports v. Cowan, 426 Md.435 (2012) holding that Maryland, notwithstanding that it had an as yet unrepealed statute and public policy declaring marriage to be between […]
Free Enterprise, Maryland Style Nearly fifty years ago, the present writer served as counsel to the Maryland Home Improvement Commission, an administrative agency which had just been immortalized in Barry Levinson’s The Tin Men. The agency then functioned under a statute that was more a self-certification than licensing statute. To obtain a license required […]
Maryland’s Protective Tariff Against Teachers In 2011, Maryland colleges produced 2897 graduates from state-approved teacher education programs, out of 28701 new Maryland college graduates (Maryland Higher Education Report, 2011, p.17). Barely 10% of Maryland’s college graduates are thus eligible for regular certification as teachers in Maryland’s public schools. The regulations governing approved teacher education […]
Strangled in its Cradle Morality, it is said, is what you do when no one is looking. To assess the morality of the O’Malley administration and its favored clients, the teachers’ unions, it is appropriate to look at an obscure enactment, passed and signed ‘under the radar screen’, Chapter 288 of the Acts of 2012. […]
George Liebmann: Switzerland in America Gazette Newspapers, November 2, 2012 The ballot referendums are important since two cure-alls of the 1970s, campaign finance “reform” and strict reapportionment, have delivered the legislature to reliable partisans and ‘bundlers” of campaign contributions. Referendums have served the Swiss well. The casino bill and congressional redistricting reflect the culture […]