With less than two months in office, Governor Hogan is already sounding eerily akin to his liberal predecessors. Earlier this month he announced a $105 million contract with Whiting-Turner to expand Thurgood Marshall Baltimore-Washington International Airport, which he said will be “creating jobs and growing the state's economy… for years to come.”

While this is technically correct—it would be extraordinarily difficult to spend $105 million without in some way supporting the economy—the questions he should be asking are: “How many jobs are being created and how efficiently?” We know he has the right kind of instincts from his career as a business owner. So why bring out the old Keynesian rhetoric?

Best case scenario, Governor Hogan is simply putting as positive a spin as he can on the whole situation. But the fact is that much of his campaign consisted of decrying wasteful government spending and criticizing the Board of Public Works (and numerous other public agencies) for failing to seek enough competitive bids on large government projects and contracts. So the public may be forgiven if they view the phrase “growing the state economy” with some misgivings.

This contract would have been an excellent time to flex his gubernatorial muscles and push for privatization.  While it’s not an easy process, the precedent is well established and would be great press for a newly elected conservative in a traditionally liberal state. Saving $105 million would be a start toward covering the perennial budget deficit.

Unfortunately, what should be one of the primary reasons to privatize an airport has been ever-so-wisely taken off the table by the federal government: the possibility of financial gain for the state from the sale or lease of the airport. Robert Poole of the Reason Foundation summarizes:

The federal Airport Improvement Program imposes economic regulation on U.S. airports in exchange for annual grant funding. Those regulations require all “airport revenues”—including proceeds from a lease or sale—to be reinvested in the airport (or airport system) that generates them. Hence, a city, county or state that wishes to lease or sell its airport would receive zero financial benefits from doing so. The regulations also prohibit any airport operator (including an investor-owned airport company) from taking any profits off the airport, which means such a company would have no incentive to acquire a U.S. airport.

Governor Hogan got where he is today by boldly challenging what most people believed were unchangeable norms. He was elected by a state that was tired of “business as usual.” He shouldn’t be making hundred-million-dollar concessions to the status quo so early.

Privatization of state-run enterprises should be a top priority for the next four years. BWI may be a lost cause for now, but the Hogan administration should be on high alert looking for opportunities to cut spending without cutting services moving forward.

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John J. Walters is a visiting fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute.