Commentary

Benjamin Franklin once said, “if you want something done, ask a busy person,” to which comedian Lucille Ball later added “the more things you do, the more things you can do.” The point, of course, is that people who stay busy are more energetic, more organized and more motivated by nature. We observed the opposite over two years of monotony and incubation during the pandemic, which resulted in a jump in laziness and less desire for people to get out of their comfort zones. For the first several months of the pandemic, activities were limited, responsibilities at work lessened, and lives constricted. As energy levels declined, anxiety meters rose. In other words, the less you do, the less you do.

When I was growing up on the streets of west Baltimore — where there are no trees to climb — we crawled through dumpsters for fun. In autumn and winter, when the air was crisp and still, we rolled up our sleeves and pushed forward. My father caught me once. Suspended waist-deep in filth, I hadn’t heard the car engine as I closely examined what looked to be a perfectly good box of Captain Crunch. The sound of “Kenny!” shouted from the driver’s side window, shot through me like a slap. A year later we moved to a tiny house on a tree-lined street in the county. It was a revelation.

The big spike in gas utility bills that Maryland residential customers should expect this winter is just the tip of the iceberg. Without major policy changes, customers will see huge increases in their gas bills in the years and decades to come. These looming increases are not because of the cost of gas itself, the source of this winter’s bill hikes, but because of the gas utilities’ massive spending on their local distribution systems — the pipes, concrete, computers, and other infrastructure that utilities use to deliver gas. A report my office is releasing this week shows that the utilities are on track to spend tens of billions of dollars replacing their entire local distribution systems and expanding pipeline capacity, with the state’s largest gas utility this year spending at a rate of more than $1.2 million per day.

U.S. Rep. Andy Harris, the 65-year-old anesthesiologist and former Baltimore County state senator who backs Donald Trump’s fraudulent election claims, once pledged to serve no more than six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Given that he is winding up that sixth term in the 1st Congressional District, it’s time to hold him to that long-ago promise. Fortunately, voters have an outstanding choice to replace Harris. Heather R. Mizeur, the Democratic nominee, has campaigned on a trait wholly foreign to her opponent: She has promised to listen, and she has our endorsement.

A recent letter to The Baltimore Sun (”Student loan bailout a slap in the face,” Sept. 26) has stayed on my mind. I’ve heard the sentiment that was expressed in the letter so many times lately. I understand the writer’s view, and I’m not unsympathetic. My wife and I scrimped and saved to pay college tuitions for our kids just like the writer. But I’m for loan forgiveness. Not because it will benefit me, my wife or my sons, but because I believe that removing the onerous burden of those loans from millions of my fellow citizens will be good for our country.

Marylanders were fortunate this year in that both candidates vying for the Democratic nomination for attorney general during the primary race were highly qualified. Each also stood to break a barrier as being the first elected to that statewide office if victorious in November: retired Baltimore District Court Judge Katie Curran O’Malley as the first woman, and U.S. Rep. Anthony Brown as the first African American. While we endorsed O’Malley in the primary contest, we are not in the least disappointed that Brown won. It was an extremely difficult choice then, and we now enthusiastically put our support behind him in the general election. Anthony Brown has our endorsement.

No woman has ever been elected to the position of Maryland comptroller, a job that essentially amounts to serving as the state’s chief accountant and tax collector. In fact, no woman has ever been elected to statewide office, outside of lieutenant governor — a glass ceiling that can be shattered with the choice of Del. Brooke Lierman to be our next comptroller. Setting that historic opportunity aside, voters can be assured that Lierman is the best qualified person for the job. The 43-year-old Baltimore attorney and mother of two has developed an expertise on state fiscal matters during her two terms in the House of Delegates and a track record in Annapolis of bipartisan consensus building, a skill that’s desperately needed in these politically polarized times.