New Jersey Governor Chris Christie took a swipe at Gov. Martin O’Malley’s budget in a recent address, saying that Gov. Martin O’Malley’s $13 billion spending plan relies on “borrowing to cover current obligations” and “in doing so they are piling one problem on top of another, reducing the creditworthiness of their state, and creating a crisis that will be larger in the future.”
True Maryland is undergoing tough times. The state faces a $2 billion budget hole that O’Malley plugs using a combination of cuts and one-time accounting maneuvers. O’Malley borrows about $350 million from account that collects state income taxes to cover operating costs, a move that raised some eyebrows but did not impact the Maryland’s top credit rating.
Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown stressed that point when we asked his opinion. “Maryland has a triple- A bond rating,” he said. “We don’t take that for granted.” He also said the state’s borrowing, saying that debt is plowed back into Maryland’s economy. State financed construction projects, he said, represent 16 percent of Maryland’s construction industry.
Some on the Senate Budget and Tax Committee are not so sure and are considering major cuts to O'Malley's budget. But, regardless of the in-state budget discussion, is Maryland even in the same league as New Jersey?
A call to Fitch revealed that NJ's GO bonds just got a AA- rating in December. Also state now faces $10.7 billion hole in its $29 billion budget, according to Christie. “It is a massive deficit,” Christie told his legislature. “The largest deficit of any state in America.”
No comments:
Post a Comment