Commentary

The mayor’s race in Baltimore had one candidate who pledged to cut the city’s property tax rate to a competitive level and thus stem the flight of people and capital that cripples its economy and threatens its financial future. Before he dropped out of the race, Thiru Vignarajah said he planned to cut in half Baltimore’s confiscatory 2.248% tax rate on real property and its 5.62% annual tax on “personal property” (really, on business equipment, supplies, and inventory).

Long emergency room wait times are unsafe and a problem across the country, but they are particularly bad in Maryland. After Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, we have the longest average wait time in the U.S., at four hours, seven minutes. A complaint of a nearly 12-hour wait was recently reported. Long wait times are a direct result of our health care systems failing us.

In the 2000 election cycle, less than $500 million was spent on campaign advertising for the presidential, Senate and House races combined. Fast forward 24 years, and the expected expenditure for these same races is now a staggering $6.5 billion, a 1,200% increase. Yet, what some candidates are discovering is that “money can’t buy me love.” The biggest spenders do not always win.

Our words matter. This adage has never been truer to me as I increasingly hear contentious rhetoric about immigration buzzing around the dinner table and in the media during this election year. Using natural disaster or criminal language terms such as “surge,” “influx,” or “illegals” to describe increases in immigration tends to stir fear and replace truth with political diatribes.

If there’s one thing we’ve come to count on from Lawrence Joseph Hogan Jr., the state’s 62nd governor, it’s that he won’t commit to protecting abortion access for Marylanders, let alone the rest of the country. So you’ll forgive our shock when, after securing the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Ben Cardin, he suddenly said he supports codifying abortion access into federal law.

With Angela Alsobrooks’ surprisingly easy victory in Maryland’s Democratic primary for the United States Senate, all eyes of the nation are now on the Free State. Once Senator Mitch McConnell convinced former Governor Larry Hogan to put down his cable news microphone and get back in the game, our state became ground zero for control of the Senate.

Amidst a national debate regarding methods of protest and activism, students at B-CC High School in Bethesda have once again shown our community how it’s done. I recently attended an exhibition by B-CC students hosted by Artomatic, the annual showcase of visual art, music, film, performance and poetry. Organized by B-CC teacher David Lopilato and timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Columbine school shooting in Colorado, the student art dealt with the issue of gun violence.