Still No Specifics from Gov

Gov. Martin O'Malley delivered an address to the Maryland Association of Counties. The themes were familiar ones for O'Malley:

(1) Investing in education as a means to economic and job growth. The phrase "create a stronger workforce" was repeated about about as many times as Jewish Marylanders will say "Aveinu Malkeinu" (Our Father, Our King) on Yom Kippur next month.

(2) Greater security through the wonders of computers and greater intergovernmental cooperation (though O'Malley amazingly resisted saying "StateStat");

(3) Protecting the environment. Perhaps best summarized as "sprawl bad, Chesapeake Bay good";

(4) Investing more in transportation to reduce traffic (with the new wrinkle of preventing bridges from collapsing as well);

(5) Addressing the structural deficit.

While O'Malley couldn't resist the occasional cliche ("Our kids are competing not just with kids from New Jersey and New York, but also from New Zealand and New Delhi."), it is still welcome to hear a speech with solid themes after four years of Ehrlich. However, we're still waiting for concrete details on how he plans to address these issue.

While one might not expect O'Malley to unveil his budget plans in the middle of August, it is getting close to "make it work" time. In about 2.5 months, it will be one year since voters turfed out Ehrlich for O'Malley. Since then, we've been waiting for the governor to reveal his plan to address the state's all-too-real deficit and the problems of the state.

So far, we haven't heard much. The General Assembly basically did nothing during its annual session at the request of the O'Malley administration. Shortly after the Assembly adjourned, the administration decided ham-handedly that money needed to be sliced from the budget, thus excluding the Assembly from the budget cut process.

By early September, the Governor ought to be prepared to tell the people how he plans to lead the State. Otherwise, the low-level grumbling that O'Malley is simply Ehrlich 2.0 (someone who doesn't want to do much but better-looking with real hair) may start to grow a lot louder.