Commentary

As political events go, the visit to Annapolis by the second gentleman — a phrase we’ll all have to wrap our heads around now — was lowkey. Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, came to Annapolis to hear from small business owners about their experiences surviving the COVID-19 recession and how federal aid programs expanded by President Joe Biden helped them through it.

Ronald Reagan made famous the punchline, “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” But Joe Biden is turning that on its head. He is, according to friends and foes alike, attempting a bold social contract on a scale not seen since FDR and LBJ. And public education is a big piece of the action. Two COVID-19 relief and recovery laws have already poured about $180 billion into state and local school budgets nationwide. In Maryland alone, the bounty is around $3 billion.

Other than my mom, who left this Earth a decade ago, the deceased person I’ve probably missed the most over the past five years has been Wayne Barrett, my mentor and role model in the journalism business, who died on Jan. 19, 2017 at the age of 71. That’s a significant date that we’ll get back to shortly. When I think about the madness of the last five years, I think maybe Wayne would have made sense of it all. He knew and understood some of the major players of the past half-decade better than anyone.

Smallpox has been eradicated from the face of the Earth following a highly effective, worldwide vaccination campaign. Paralytic poliomyelitis is no longer a problem in the U.S. because of development and use of effective vaccines against the poliovirus. In current times, millions of lives have been saved because of rapid deployment of effective vaccines against COVID-19. And yet, it has been 37 years since HIV was discovered as the cause of AIDS, and there is no vaccine.

Other than my mom, who left this Earth a decade ago, the deceased person I’ve probably missed the most over the past five years has been Wayne Barrett, my mentor and role model in the journalism business, who died on Jan. 19, 2017 at the age of 71. That’s a significant date that we’ll get back to shortly. When I think about the madness of the last five years, I think maybe Wayne would have made sense of it all.

It is a terrifying time to be a parent of a child under 12. The CDC has said anyone who is fully vaccinated can stop wearing a mask. And Gov. Larry Hogan has “lifted the statewide mask mandate in addition to all other capacity and distancing restrictions.” Over the past year, I have worked with my kids (ages 2, 6, 8, and 11) to help them develop the skills to enter stores safely. They wear masks with no problem (even the 2-year-old). They know not to touch things unnecessarily, they hand sanitize regularly, and they stay 6 feet away from anyone outside our household.

In March, President Biden unveiled the American Jobs Plan, an historic investment in the United States’ long-neglected infrastructure systems. The plan, which is undergirded by the idea that infrastructure improvements must also attack environmental injustice and the growing climate crisis, is a revolutionary signal to states and cities across the country that it’s time to invest in zero-emission clean energy, transportation and buildings.

The recent guest commentary by Maryland Advocates for Sustainable Transportation unfairly attacks Comptroller Peter Franchot and continues to propagate a series of misrepresentations about Maryland’s proposed public-private partnership to add new managed lanes to the American Legion Bridge and I-270. As we have learned in the recent past, just repeating fake news does not make it real. The commentary continues to cite the costs and impacts of implementing toll lanes on sections of I-495 east of the I-270 spur that are not even part of Phase 1 of the P3 program.