How in the world is the state of Maryland still going bankrupt this year? Okay, that's sort of a rhetorical question -- I know how the state of Maryland is still going bankrupt this year. Same old story as before: too much spending coupled with declining tax revenues thanks to the flight of most profitable businesses to states with a more favorable political and economic climate.

But still, after poring over the old Maryland State Summary today, I have to ask again: how in the world is the state of Maryland running such a deficit? Perhaps I should explain...

For almost no reason at all, save my own natural curiosity, I decided to make a collection of all the federal grants that list the recipients simply as "town of such and such," "city of so and so," or "county of whosiwhatsits."

There were almost 400 grants of this kind, given to the various local governments of Maryland. Keep in mind that this number does not include grants given for specific purposes or departments, such as to the Montgomery County Board of Education for example. If I had added those into the mix I'd probably still be hard at work. Happily, I am not.

Instead I can tell you that local governments of Maryland received $373,904,642.57 and used this money to create 181.11 jobs. This number, of course, must be taken with as large of a grain of salt as all the other information gleaned from recovery.gov.

The state government of Maryland itself received two grants for a total of $482,277,313. The first grant, which was for $160,123,730.00, was used to employ 963.95 police officers. The second, for $322,153,583.00, was used to employ 156.88 teachers. That means an average of $166,112.07 per cop and $2,053,503.21 per teacher. Yep.

First of all, I have to say that I think this is a load of baloney, given how many cops and fire-fighters are getting the boot these days in MD. But second of all, I think I may have just found my next career. I realize there's more to creating a job than simply paying a salary, but it's hard for me to believe that teachers aren't getting slightly better compensation and working conditions when it apparently costs more than ten times as much to employ one of them than a police officer.

In an attempt to end on a positive note, the average cost per job created by local governments in Maryland is apparently $658,889.91. That's not even a third of the average cost per job created by the aggregate stimulus recipients in Maryland. Maybe a centrally planned economy is the way to go after all...