Union Rules: A Summary of Liebmann’s Agreement

Last July, the Calvert Institute published a Calvert Issue Brief by Baltimore attorney George Liebmann. Called “The Agreement: How Federal, State and Union Regulations Are Destroying Public Education in Maryland,”1 the study included the first analysis of all 24 teachers’ union contracts currently operative in this state. A summary of the report is reproduced below. […]

Curing Misperceptions: The Calvert Cure and the DLS Rebuttal

Though conservatives have long been aware of it, many of Maryland’s opinion leaders seem blissfully unconcerned about the state’s traditionally casual approach to the cost and size of government. State and local combined personal income taxation is among the very highest in the country, a fact that has elicited remarkably little interest among the intelligentsia. […]

The Agreement: How Federal, State and Union Regulations Are Destroying Public Education in Maryland

About the Author George W. Liebmann, J.D. George W. Liebmann is a practicing lawyer in Baltimore City. He is the author of two books, The Little Platoons: Sub-Local Governments in Modern History (Praeger, 1995) and The Gallows in the Grove: Civil Society in American Law (Praeger, 1997). He has also authored numerous articles on constitutional […]

Padded Payroll: An Examination of Municipal Employment Practices in Baltimore City

About the Author Kantayhanee Whitt is currently an assistant program manager with a Baltimore-based non-profit enterprise that provides training and technical assistance to organizations and institutions involved in community development. She received her master of arts degree in policy studies at the Johns Hopkins University in 1997. In 1995, she received her bachelor of science […]

Focus on the Facts: Deadly Maryland

Despite recent self-congratulation due to Maryland’s declining crime rate over 1997, the fact remains that this state compares most unfavorably. According to FBI violent crime data taken from the Census Bureau’s Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1996, in 1990 Marylanders experienced 919 violent crimes per 100,000 state residents. This made the Free State […]

The Interview: Ellen R. Sauerbrey, Former House Minority Leader

We continue our series of interviews with the major contenders in the 1998 gubernatorial race. In this issue, we talk with Ellen Sauerbrey, the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1994 and the former minority leader in the Maryland House of Delegates. Calvert Question. What accomplishments were you most proud of as minority leader in the House […]

Keiffer Mitchell to Back Vouchers?

At a recent symposium hosted by United Citizens for Maryland’s Future,1 state education Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick rhetorically asked, “Should any student, by accident of where he lives, have to attend a failing school?” Having solicited the requisite negative nods from the audience, Dr. Grasmick went on to describe how the Maryland School Performance Assessment […]

Cutting Taxes: Why and Why Now

The year is 2002. Maryland is flourishing, with robust economic growth – well above the 1.5 percent anemic growth of the mid-l980s. Businesses are moving to Maryland and expanding by the score. Small businesses are appearing all over to fill the niches vacated by retreating big government and merging companies. Location consultants brag about Maryland. […]

Talking Taxes: Rural Counties Seriously Gypped

The nay-saying has started. Opponents of tax cuts have deluged the General Assembly with dire warnings about the consequences of trimming taxes. So let us put Maryland’s fiscal situation in perspective. It is hardly as though Annapolis has been on a diet over our readers’ lifetimes. Adjusted for inflation, state expenditure was $1.7 billion back […]

This Is Our House: How the Caroline Center Tackles Job Readiness

Drive a few blocks due east of the state penitentiary in downtown Baltimore and you will cross the 900 block of Somerset Street. There you will find the “Caroline Center: A Learning/Career Center for Women of East Baltimore.”1 This is not a salubrious part of town. Nonetheless, the center concentrates on providing intensive, values-based training […]