Fix Maryland's budget

I join with the more than fifty organizations calling on Maryland leaders to fix the budget now. We urge you to come together and resolve Maryland’s ongoing budgetary crisis now. The doomsday budget cuts, and the need for more cuts in the future because of a failure to address our structural budget deficit today, are not a path that will move Maryland forward. We cannot afford to shortchange our public schools, health care, public safety, higher education, and state programs and workforce—the very things that Marylanders depend on every day. Balancing a budget while sacrificing our state’s critical programs, services, and quality schools will only harm the well-being and future of our citizens, communities, and state.

I ask you to raise the necessary revenues in a special session to fully fund the public programs and services that make our state a great place to start a business and raise a family.

The stakes are terribly high.

Leaving the doomsday cuts in place would mean increased class sizes, fewer educational resources, laid off teachers, higher college tuition, 500 state employee layoffs in 2013, collateral cuts made by other employers who fail to receive state funds, less money for foster care, less funding to help the disabled, stressed public safety budgets, and many more negative consequences. These cuts would come on top of approximately $2 billion in state budget reductions since FY 2009 and $375 million other reductions for 2013.

On an individual level, implementing the doomsday budget would mean that suddenly students would find that they cannot afford to return to college, breadwinners would be without work, and the community aid organizations that help them would have higher caseloads but fewer dollars. But even then, we would still face more funding limits and cuts in next year’s budget.

Thank you for working through these issues and making the welfare of our state and its residents your top priority.