Commentary

At a New York hospital, a custodial worker passed out in a bathroom stall. In Ohio, police found a municipal employee slumped over his steering wheel in an IHOP parking lot. These individuals overdosed on the job — demonstrating how the opioid crisis has reared its head in America’s workplaces. According to federal government statistics, the opioid crisis costs the U.S. economy approximately $500 billion annually. And, contrary to public perceptions, most drug abusers are gainfully employed. Lifesaving interventions in the opioid crisis could happen, therefore, not in courts, hospitals or family living rooms, but instead in office cubicles.

It’s great to once again have a president who can read. Comparisons suck, to roughly paraphrase Shakespeare. President Biden is no Barack Obama, nor does he need to be. The salient point is that neither is he a Donald Trump, which is important in the battle for literacy in the nation. We learn by example and experience. Trump was no role model.

School systems throughout Maryland, and the country for that matter, face a daunting task over the coming months to get students who have fallen behind during the pandemic back on the learning track. Failing grades have tripled in some cases amid virtual learning and the stress COVID-19 has put on students and their families. Students of all backgrounds are struggling, but especially those who faced challenges before the pandemic. But this is not the time to hold students back a grade, punishing them for the extraordinary crisis we find ourselves in, through no fault of our own.

It’s been an unusual, difficult year for all of us. But despite the atypical times, this year’s legislative session went as it usually does, with Democrats in the Maryland General Assembly overriding Gov. Larry Hogan’s vetoes to deliver results for our state. The unusual year compounded high expectations coming into the 2021 session; Maryland faced intertwined economic, public health and racial justice crises that required immediate action.

With the change in presidential administrations, some are demanding that President Biden fire the current Commissioner, Andrew Saul, of the Social Security Administration (SSA), appointed by President Donald Trump. Under current law, Commissioner Saul may stay in office through the end of his term (another four years), although a recent Supreme Court decision does put the law around independent agencies into constitutional question. Legal and political issues aside, what is, as a matter of good public policy, the correct governance and political structure for this massive, critical federal agency, with considerable decision-making authority and policy responsibility?