Commentary

Small business owners in Maryland and across the country are reporting inflation and supply chain disruptions are impacting their businesses in big ways. Small businesses play an important role in our national economy, with small businesses making up more than 99% of all of Maryland businesses, and nearly half of all of Maryland’s employees being employed at one, according to the U.S. Small Business Association. According to new research from Bank of America, small business owners are facing market-driven and operational challenges, like inflation, supply chain issues and labor shortages.

There the two words every high school student — especially those in a senior class — long to hear: graduation day. In each of the last two years, that has meant something a little different. Members of the Class of 2020, who graduated at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, had a collective virtual ceremony but received their diplomas in one of the most unusual ways possible as they drove to their schools and stood individually with their school principal on small stages or sidewalks to be handed the crowning achievement of their scholastic careers.

Big money rules in Congress. Gun manufacturers can always prevent common-sense legislation like improved background checks, even though more than 90% of all voters and 83% of gun owners favor the measure. Similarly, we pay more for prescription drugs because our government officials — beholden as they are to corporate campaign spenders — will not allow our government to negotiate prices via Medicare and Medicaid. The same makers sell the same drugs in other nations for a small fraction of the price they charge in the U.S.A.

Then-Maryland Transportation Secretary Greg Slater was told in an email how to win approval of the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan: “Perhaps we can offer them the old bridge for bicycles and save on the cost of demolishment,” Allen Garman, the Maryland Transportation Authority’s director of treasury and debt, said. Likewise, Jim Ports, then the executive director of the authority, voiced concerns about not wanting to waste public funds. Yet the Maryland Transportation Authority plans to spend $15 million to $23 million to destroy the existing Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial/Senator Thomas “Mac” Middleton Bridge, which should be given more consideration for conversion to a pedestrian/bicycle facility that will provide a missing connection at a fraction of the cost for a new structure.

In 2020, there were more than 45,000 gun deaths in the United States — the highest number on record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But there was no major push for gun safety legislation. Why? Last year, there were nearly 700 mass shootings in America — the highest number ever recorded by the Gun Violence Archive — and again, there was no major push for gun legislation. Why?

With the rollback of mask mandates and increased demands for a return to “normal,” survivors feel left behind, their grief unseen. Worse yet, many face the outright denial of their loss, especially when they read social media posts that claim the death rates are exaggerated or that the virus is nothing but “a hoax.” Or that age, infirmity or some other disease besides COVID is to blame. Last summer, the U.S. surgeon general issued an advisory regarding the “urgent threat” to public health posed by misinformation about COVID. Despite that, counterclaims and falsehoods have continued relatively unchecked, compounding the grief of families and hindering an already incomplete mourning process.

Recently, I was sitting in the cafe of a large chain grocery store when two employees walked by. One of them must have been training the other one because he said to his colleague, “You saw how crazy things were for Mother’s Day? How we sold out of flowers?” The trainee nodded. “Father’s Day won’t be anything like that,” the veteran said. “It’ll be just another Sunday.” Americans spend on average, $71 more for mothers than they do fathers on their respective holidays. And research from 2021 found that 84% of Americans were planning on feting their mothers, while 75% said the same for fathers.