Commentary

Even though more than 12 million Marylanders have received at least one COVID-19 vaccination, immunization rates for other communicable illnesses have dropped, leaving particularly vulnerable communities — such as children, college students and seniors — susceptible to a host of preventable illnesses. With Maryland students returning to classrooms this month, this is an important opportunity to ensure that all family members are protected from potentially fatal illnesses, including measles, polio, meningitis and pneumococcal disease.

Black people in Maryland, as is the case around the U.S., are a captured electorate of the Democratic Party. The core of the party, which is dominated by an overwhelmingly white donor class (made up of white corporate and political elites and a multiracial gatekeeper class), has benefited more from Black people’s consistent patronage than Black people have benefited from Democratic Party representation.

The partisan polarization and grandstanding rhetoric that face voters today have become more disabling than ever and are distractions from the real-life issues.  They drive us toward politically expedient, impractical, and untested solutions that drain resources and do not improve our quality of life. In this climate, it is vital that county leaders stay focused on the real challenges we face and offer meaningful solutions.  As a sitting Maryland senator and a candidate for Harford County Executive, here are my thoughts on some of those real challenges and some practical solutions:

Donald Trump has a lot of charisma. Let me finish. I do not mean charisma in the colloquial sense of being charming, though he has charmed millions. I’m referring to a style of leadership famously described by the German sociologist Max Weber, who described three forms of authority or leadership: traditional, legal-rational and charismatic. In traditional societies monarchs derive their authority from custom. In modern societies, most leaders — elected or otherwise — are chosen based on their qualifications and expertise and their authority is prescribed by law.

Recent media reports have revealed that the Hogan Administration is closing its capital budget meetings to legislative staff members. The capital budget ($5.2 billion this year) deals with construction projects and other big-ticket items that the state can fund with bonds. Legislative staff have been invited to these meetings back at least to the administration of Governor Harry Hughes in the 1970s and ‘80s. This move is well within the rights of the governor and his budget staff. Still, it is a step backward.

Just 1 in 4 Americans believe that President Biden’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act will actually reduce inflation, while 71 percent say the law will either have no impact or make things worse. The majority is right to be skeptical. The nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model found that the bill’s effect on inflation will be “statistically indistinguishable from zero.” This is not surprising. The real purpose of the bill is not to reduce inflation but to reduce climate change. Fully 85 percent of the law’s spending goes toward climate and clean energy.

Federal income tax rates range from 10 percent in the lowest income bracket to 37 percent at the highest bracket. At the state level, Maryland levies progressive rates ranging from 2 percent to 5.75 percent. This might suggest that the rich face substantially higher tax rates than the poor. Yet, a holistic examination of the income tax code reveals the opposite: Low-income households face the steepest tax rates, and Maryland makes it worse. What explains this counterintuitive trend? Means testing: a determination of whether a household is eligible for the full amount, partial amount, or none of a government benefit based on their income. For example, the Earned Income Tax Credit withdraws $21 for each $100 of earnings above $19,520, for parents with two children. This is equivalent to taxing that parent at a 21 percent rate. Either way, the

I don’t claim to know exactly how Lynn Weisberg feels, nearly two years after her son’s death, but I can empathize with her frustration in trying to get information about it. Official sources — the Baltimore City Fire Department and the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems — have refused to discuss how emergency medical personnel treated Weisberg’s 44-year-old son, Jeremy Davidson, in the last 90 minutes of his life. The BCFD and the MIEMSS cited state law in denying my requests for the results of any investigations that might have taken place after Davidson’s death.