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Commentary

Wen: The U.S. has lost 1 million lives from covid-19. Where do we go from here?
May 11, 2022 -

As the United States surpasses the tragic milestone of 1 million deaths from covid-19, we must decide where we go from here. The bad news is that this coronavirus is here to stay. It will continue to cause surges fueled by new and possibly even more contagious variants. The White House is projecting that as many as 100 million Americans could contract covid-19 this fall and winter.

Read More: Washington Post
Weil: What if taxpayers could check a box on their returns to support elections?
May 11, 2022 -

In the wake of the Watergate scandal, policymakers in 1974 created what became the Presidential Election Campaign Fund (PECF), letting taxpayers check a box on their tax returns to allocate $1 of their taxes ($2 for married couples) to publicly fund campaigns. (Today, that amount has risen to $3 for individuals and $6 for joint filers.) Unfortunately, no major presidential nominee since Republican John McCain in 2008 has accepted general election public financing because it comes with limits on spending. As a result, more than $412 million now sits unspent in the PECF, which will undoubtedly grow as candidates continue to shun spending limits.

Read More: Washington Post
Tighter traffic standard would help control pace of growth
May 11, 2022 -

Our county has been struggling for most of a decade with overburdened roads. The Frederick County Council is considering a concrete step to address the problem. And yes, the pun is intended. Under proposed changes to the adequate public facilities ordinance now before the council, large developments would be required to meet a higher standard for easing future traffic congestion before proceeding with construction.

Read More: Frederick News Post
What does it take to rise out of poverty? Baltimore launches a pilot program to find out
May 10, 2022 -

Fewer than 10% of Marylanders live below the poverty line, but in Baltimore, the ratio is much higher, with one in five people living in poverty. There is no shortage of reasons why the rate in the state’s largest city is stubbornly high. Often, poverty simply begets more poverty. Individuals born into certain city neighborhoods will have a tougher time finding employment opportunities and decent housing, health care and transportation, and they are more likely to be impacted by crime and substance abuse.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Editor’s Notebook: Taking optimism for Downtown Baltimore out of the ballroom and into the streets
May 10, 2022 -

No, we definitely were not on Zoom anymore. The ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore packed more than 500 of Baltimore’s business and civic leaders — Mayor Brandon Scott, Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski and M&T Bank local head Augie Chiasera among them — for the standing-room-only Downtown Partnership of Baltimore annual meeting on Monday.

Read More: Baltimore Business Journal
Overturning ‘Roe’ is not a conservative choice; it’s radical
May 10, 2022 -

Dear Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas: As you’ll no doubt agree, Roe v. Wade was an ill-judged decision when it was handed down Jan. 22, 1973. It stood on the legal principle of a right to privacy found, at the time, mainly in the penumbras of the Constitution. It arrogated to the least democratic branch of government the power to settle a question that would have been better decided by Congress or state legislatures.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Judge Steven Platt: Closing the Curtain on the Political Theater of the Absurd
May 10, 2022 -

Most of the “late-breaking news” on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” the “breaking news” announced during the new fourth hour of “Morning Joe,” and the opinions expressed on Fox News have a familiar ring to them. Even the guests and conversations on the network morning shows and the evening news sound like reruns of shows shown the day or the week before. That is true even if occasionally some new fact is injected into the coverage. The reason is that so much of what is labeled as “news” is really nothing more than political theater, presented to the public watching and listening by insecure politicians in order to gain their attention or even affection when they feel the need to feel their love.

Read More: Maryland Matters
In Maryland, Gov. Hogan plays politics with abortion access
May 9, 2022 -

During his more than seven years in office, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has deployed a deft hand in balancing his conservative instincts as a Republican executive in an overwhelmingly Democratic state. But by withholding $3.5 million in legislatively approved funds intended to train medical professionals to provide safe abortions, Mr. Hogan has betrayed the wishes of many Marylanders on grounds that appear disingenuous. The governor’s move comes as he weighs a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in primaries whose voters are much more likely to oppose abortion rights than most Marylanders.

Read More: Washington Post
Kurtz: Strolling Casually Into a Public Health Catastrophe
May 9, 2022 -

So THIS time Democrats are vowing to mobilize their voters around the issue of abortion and the Supreme Court. Isn’t it a little too late for those declarations, now that we’re at the precipice of a public health catastrophe? Yes, the leak of the draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will change the narrative about this year’s election and reorder some of the parties’ strategic priorities. But will it transform the overall political dynamic for the 2022 elections all that much?

Read More: Maryland Matters
Miller: As It’s Now Written, Thrive Montgomery 2050 Would Create More Poverty
May 9, 2022 -

I am writing to support the significance of engaging poor residents for low-income housing accessibility. Fully 77,000 households — more than 20% of households — in Montgomery County, earn less than $50,000 per year; many are living in crowded and unsafe conditions in order to afford rent. All Montgomery residents, including low-wealth citizens and non-citizens as newcomers who are poor, deserve to live in beautiful, safe, healthy dwellings and neighborhoods, but we face many barriers, including language barriers. Montgomery County’s decisions about housing and land use policy affect poor people profoundly.

Read More: Maryland Matters

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