In this election season, the rematch between Governor Martin O’Malley and former governor Bob Ehrlich is attracting the most attention. But there is another important statewide race that should not be overlooked. The comptroller is in charge of the state’s finances and the incumbent, Peter Franchot, is running against former Department of Veterans Affairs and Coast Guard CFO William Campbell. Both Franchot and Campbell have many appealing qualities. I want to take today’s blog post to look at some of Campbell’s positions and my next post to look at Franchot.

From a fiscally conservative perspective, it’s hard not to gush about William Campbell. As his interview with the Daily Record illustrates, he sounds many of the same themes that the MPPI has been discussing for the past few years (one note – in my lone conversation with Mr. Campbell he did say that he was a reader of MPPI’s publications).

On state spending: “There has been a culture of spending beyond our means for quite some time. It’s not a new phenomenon. We have set up programs where we have what you will hear is a structural deficit. That’s a fancy word for ‘we have plans that exceed our future projected income.’”

On state pensions: Campbell wants to move to a defined- contribution program and step up oversight of pension fund managers that receive $100 million a year to produce poor returns for the state’s pension system.

On the corporate income tax: “We only get 2 percent of our revenues from the corporate income tax and it’s a huge impediment to businesses coming here.” Campbell proposes eliminating it.

On state spending projections: “It appears oftentimes their estimates are too rosy. We have taken what are very suspicious estimates and plugged them in like they’re gospel.” He especially criticized Governor O’Malley’s budget for assuming $389 million in federal Medicaid spending that didn’t fully materialize.

On the state purchase of slot machines: “I don’t know what a slot machine should cost, but we paid $50,000 per machine for [Perryville] and we’re doing the same at [Ocean Downs.] At a minimum, we need to see if we’re overpaying, and if we are, we need to recoup that money.”

Mr. Campbell’s certainly seems to understand how the state’s fiscal irresponsibility is affecting our state. Unfortunately, his fiscal common sense is not too common in Annapolis.

Next time: how does Pete Franchot fare on fiscal responsibility issues?