ANNAPOLIS – Governor Wes Moore joined Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates, Adrienne Jones and Senate President Bill Ferguson at a press conference to present the framework on the Maryland 2026 state budget.
“As I said on the first day of session, my top priority this year is to protect Marylanders,” Jones said. “We knew this year would be different and to achieve the goal would mean putting aside what we like to do in favor of what we have to do. No one up here wants to talk about cuts. No one wants to talk about revenues. But responsible governing means having the tough conversations It means doing what is right not just what is politically convenient.”
Jones said: “Over the past several weeks the governor, the senate president and I all come to the table to do just that. The budget we are announcing today reflects our shared Democratic values and strikes the right balance to face our fiscal challenges head on. We are making cuts. In fact, our budget includes $500 million in additional cuts to what the governor originally proposed. But as Donald Trump continues his assault on workers, healthcare and our most vulnerable, we are preserving funding for state employee salaries, cancer research, victims of crime and DDA
“We are raising revenue. We are asking the wealthiest marylanders to pay their fair share. We are putting our state in line with others like Texas, Washington DC, and Ohio by enacting a 3 percent fee on IT services,” she said. Jones added that the budget provides “tax breaks to low- and middle-income Marylanders who will struggle the most…”
The budget, she said, invests in public education, transportation and healthcare which are the priorities for Maryland.
Senate president Bill Ferguson elaborated on the state budget:
“We are announcing today a significant framework for the state budget,” Ferguson said. “Legislative leaders along with the governor’s office have agreed to a state budget framework that strikes what I and all of us believe is the right balance between fiscal responsibility and protecting our core social safety net in the state of Maryland.
“The senate, house and governor’s teams have worked dilligently over the last 70 days to put forward a budget framework that I strongly believe sets Maryland on the right path at this critical moment in time.
“With a potential storm looming from the federal government we must re-chart a new path for our great state that accounts for the chaos and uncertainty that we are seeing from DC every day.
“Getting here certainly has not been easy as we don’t have the full federal picture,” Ferguson said. “But based on the last two months of the federal administration’s slash-and-burn approach to governing we do have a pretty good idea of what’s coming later this year.
“The cost we may bear to the Trump administration’s destruction is what I’ve been thinking about the most as we’ve had to make critical decisions on how best to balance our budget and, importantly, prepare for our future. Now let me set a little bit of the economic picture here in Maryland.
“Right now we curently rely on less than a third of our economy to provide 100 percent of our sales tax revenue. That no longer makes sense for our state. This budget framework includes important and responsive changes to tax policy, funding for education and adjustments to state spending, changes that will have a net positive impact on Maryland residents and businesses alike.
“Let’s dive into the key highlights:
“In order to achieve our revenue numbers we had to consider many possibilities and proposals,” Ferguson said. “And as we’ve moved through the legislative session I’ve said many times that many things are on the table. Today I want to announce we have agreed to take a number of things off the table:
“We are not increasing the Maryland sales rate on goods. We are not adding a fee for deliveries. We are not increasing property taxes. We are not raising money from igaming. We are not increasing the estate tax. We are not making changes to the car trade allowance. We are not imposing new taxes on sugary drinks or snacks. We are not raising the gas tax.”
Mark Fisher, Republican Delegate responded on social media by posting a chart of the number of people who have left the state of Maryland.
Fisher added another post saying “Gov. Moore says he’s cutting spending, but when asked the question, “What are you cutting?”— he couldn’t name one!”