One thing is clear. O’Malley emerges from the Special Session as a bold and decisive “can-do”leader. He knew what needed to be done. He put together a comprehensive and reasonable legislative package. He took a huge risk by calling a Special Session when the outcome was far from assured. He had the humility to treat the Assembly and its leaders as equal partners.
Where to begin? The Governor’s legislative package was comprehensive only in the fact that he attempted to raise many taxes at once. At no point can any portion of the Governor’s package be considered reasonable, however, when one takes into account that O’Malley’s understanding of economics led him to the conclusion that in order to fix an alleged deficit that the state needed to spend more money. That’s only reasonable if you are insane.
And, sorry, you cannot legitimately expect us to think that O’Malley tried to treat the legislators as equal partners when they attempted time and again to browbeat legislators into supporting their scheme and, failing that, just bought them outright.
Apparently, all of this makes sense if you drink the green Kool-Aid. Because only those who are true believers in O’Malleyism truly support taxing Maryland’s working families back into poverty, which is what O’Malley and the Democratic leadership have just engineered.
