Fact Checking Martin O’Malley

When Governor O’Malley takes to the airwaves or the oped pages he relies on two distinct rhetorical crutches: a straw man opponent to knock down, and his outright torture of data and statistics to make them wholly at odds with reality.

O’Malley’s response, in the Washington Post, to Texas Governor Rick Perry’s ad blitz knocking his record and Maryland’s dismal business climate is no different.

O’Malley is, as William F. Buckley Jr. would say, a pyromaniac in a field of straw men.  Those straw men are stuffed with twisted facts and outright lies. 

As with most of O’Malley’s statements there is a yawning gap between his words and the truth.

This is a lie O’Malley has told since 2011.  It was a lie then, and no matter how much those phantom spending cuts grow each year, it is still a lie.

State spending data from the non-partisan Maryland Department of Legislative Services shows that the state budget for the current fiscal year is $36.9 billion. O’Malley’s first budget totaled $28.7 billion.  That is a 30 percent spending increase of $8.2 billion in real dollars.

The Tax Foundation has already rebuked O’Malley for cherry picking its data to create this false talking point.  Of Maryland’s overall business tax climate the foundation says:

In fact, Governor O’Malley has increased taxes and fees more than 40 times removing $9.5 billion from the state economy according to the grassroots group Change Maryland.

It should be noted that O’Malley cherry picked and juked Tax Foundation data to respond to Change Maryland’s findings.

Thanks to Governor O’Malley’s several income tax hikes, Maryland businesses face the 7^th highest marginal income tax rates in the nation.

“Texas ranks 49^thin high school graduation,” By investing in our schools, which Education week has ranked No. 1 in the nation since 2007.” 

O’Malley’s source is a report from the left leaning Center for Public Policy Priorities, which relied on flawed data supplied by the states. The Huffington Post said “undercounted dropouts and produced inflated results, making cross-state comparisons inaccurate and volatile.”  Last year the U.S. Department of Education released new graduation figures, in which the states used common rigorous data, allowing for true state-by-state comparisons.  That data shows Texas outranks Maryland in graduation rates.  Texas ranks 3^rd in the nation with an 86 percent graduation rate, and Maryland 5^th with an 83 percent graduation rate.

Furthermore, the same Education Week Report that ranks Maryland No. 1, also shows Maryland schools are failing their most vulnerable students. Maryland ranks 50^thin the poverty gap for 8^th grade math and 38^th for 4^th grade reading poverty gap. 

And the students Maryland does graduate from high school, a large percentage of them need remedial courses when they get to college.  According to this report from the Maryland Higher Education Commission, 61 percent of core community college students (those who took a college preparatory track in high school) needed remedial math instruction. Fifteen percent of core students attending a Maryland four-year institution needed remedial math instruction.

The education reform group Student’s First ranked Maryland schools 17^th in the nation and they received a grade of D in areas of elevating teaching, empowering parents and spending wisely and governing well.

What the Education Week rankings really say is that Maryland schools aren’t so great at student achievement, but are tops spending money, which, from O’Malley’s budget record, we know he excels at as well.

This is a misleading claim because California actually has the highest number of uninsured under age 65 uninsured in the nation, according to data from the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

To paraphrase Buckley again, don’t insult Martin O’Malley’s intelligence by suggesting he believes what he says.