The latest round of fiscal bad news for Maryland’s state government prompted a spokeswoman for Gov. Larry Hogan to dust off a classic Republican talking point: “Let’s be clear: Maryland doesn’t have a revenue problem,” spokeswoman Amelia Chasse said. “Certain members of the General Assembly have a spending problem.”
The Board of Revenue Estimates just concluded that the state’s finances over this year and next will be about $800 million worse than it expected six months ago. The state’s anticipated spending hasn’t changed since then. But it’s anticipated tax revenues have. Sounds like a revenue problem to us.
Actually, more accurately, it sounds like a revenue estimate problem, and in the grand scheme of things, not that big of one. The $800 million reduction sounds like a lot, but it amounts to 2.3 percent of the nearly $34 billion in general fund revenue Maryland expects to collect in fiscal 2017 (which started July 1) and fiscal 2018.
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