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Government Scare Tactics

Originally Published in the Frederick News-Post

Economic & Fiscal Policy

by Marta Hummel Mossburg

OP-EDS

Gov. Martin O'Malley often talks to Marylanders as if they were kindergartners.

His favorite trope is that we share "one" Maryland and that we are all in this together. As the mother of small children I am reminded of the songs of a perennial kiddie favorite, Raffi, when he speaks. "One Sun," and "The more we get together," which informs listeners, "the happier we'll be," are two songs with particular resonance. O'Malley's style wouldn't be such a problem if I could turn him off like Raffi and if state government did not have the power to take my money by force of law. But that is not the case.

His latest example of talking down took a dark turn last week when he told hundreds of the state's mayors and local elected officials at a Maryland Municipal League meeting: "Bridges are not like trees; they don't grow stronger with age. ... They crumble. And that's why they need to be repaired before moms and dads die on their way to work and they collapse in rivers."

Perhaps he is taking a cue from Vice President Joe Biden, who scares small children with political rhetoric. On Oct. 18 Biden basically told fourth-graders at Goode Elementary School in York, Pa., that their school had to fire teachers because rich people are not paying enough in taxes.

If only fixing schools were as simple as taxing the rich more and lowering the unemployment rate a question of "investing" ever more in public employees and infrastructure. Decades of throwing money at public education shows big spending doesn't guarantee a good education. And the performance of the economy in the past few years illustrates that the economy cannot be controlled like a classroom of small children.

Besides, a nation that expects the government to do everything for it is one destined to fail. An individual's problems in that kind of society will always end up being someone else's fault, and few will take responsibility for themselves.

Matt Welch, editor of Reason magazine, wrote last week, "Adult human beings have agency, the ability (even responsibility!) to run their own cost/benefit analyses and choose accordingly."

That is what we should be hearing from our elected officials on a regular basis, not about what is going to happen to us if the government can't have more power and money.

But I am not holding my breath. When the former head of the state Senate's Budget and Taxation Committee defends himself in federal court from corruption charges by trying to prove his stupidity, what hope does the average citizen have for any common sense in Annapolis?

This year, moms and dads will die if the gas tax is not raised to pay for bridge repair. Next year it could be small children who will die if free day care isn't provided to those below a certain income threshold. Who knows? The only constants are more so-called emergencies that never end no matter how much we pay in taxes and the childlike credulity of Maryland voters who believe those lies are true.