Over the last month, communities across Maryland have been ravaged by flooding. First Frederick and parts of Southern Maryland were inundated by heavy rain. A week later, Ellicott City’s historic district was destroyed for the second time in less than two years by a torrent of stormwater, and homes in Southwest Baltimore were damaged by flooding. Then parts of Western Howard County and Carroll County were affected by flooding that shut down more than a dozen roads. The entire Eastern Seaboard was hit with consecutive extreme rain events throughout the month of May and into the beginning of June, and these events are becoming increasingly frequent due to climate change. In order to protect lives, homes, and businesses, state and local policymakers must continue to take steps to manage flooding, restrict development that will worsen flooding, and mitigate climate change. Flood management and infrastructure investment protect thriving communities Heavy rain…

The number of people confined in Maryland prisons declined by 10 percent in 2017, a steeper drop than in any other state. This is cause to celebrate as well as a sign that reforms the state has enacted in recent years, like the Justice Reinvestment Act, are working. At the same time, Maryland still has a long way to go to bring our judicial policies in line with international norms, and legislation enacted earlier this year threatens to reverse our recent progress. Rather than double down on counterproductive practices from our past, we should build on our recent success by ensuring that all Marylanders can access due process, good jobs, and opportunity. A recent report from the Vera Institute of Justice found that Maryland in 2017 saw the largest decline of any state in both the number of people we incarcerate and the share of Marylanders who are in prison…

Maryland families and communities are feeling the impact of the Trump administration’s recent immigration policy changes. The administration’s ongoing efforts to curtail both legal and undocumented immigration to the U.S. have made it more difficult for businesses to obtain visas for their workers and will break apart families by forcing immigrants who have spent decades building lives in the U.S. to leave or face deportation. Young immigrants working and studying in Maryland under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) also continue to face uncertain futures, even after a recent legal victory that could force Homeland Security to resume accepting new DACA applications. These policy changes won’t support vibrant communities or a healthy economy in Maryland. A win for “Dreamers” is a win for Maryland Even though the Trump administration announced the end of DACA last year, a series of federal court rulings have served as stopgap measures to keep the…

A recent report on Montgomery County’s economic outlook painted a misleadingly bleak picture and prompted misguided calls for tax cuts and deregulation. The truth is that Montgomery County has a fundamentally strong local economy and at the same time faces challenges. If policymakers panic and rush to cut taxes or weaken protections for working people, it will be harder for the county to achieve broadly shared prosperity. Montgomery County is in a fundamentally strong economic position. The county continues to attract residents at a healthy pace, increasing in population significantly faster than the state as a whole. The county has also seen strong private-sector wage growth in recent years, outpacing the Washington metro area by 2.3 percentage points. Montgomery County’s property values are now 4 percent higher in nominal terms than they were in 2010 when statewide property values peaked, while property values statewide have not yet returned to their…

Thousands of Marylanders would have a harder time affording sufficient, healthy food under provisions in the proposed federal Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (also known as the “farm bill”). The current provisions add aggressive new work requirements and state mandates and would require increased paperwork and staff at state agencies. If enacted, these provisions would endanger the millions of people nationwide who get food assistance through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) and over-burden state and local government agencies delivering these services. SNAP is the main nutrition program in the United States. In 2017, SNAP provided 42 million people nationwide, including 684,000 Marylanders, with assistance that helped them to put food on their table, and fill the gap between having enough to eat and going hungry. SNAP recipients include children, seniors, people with disabilities, low-wage workers, and many more. In addition to the immediate positive effects of SNAP, research…

Maryland lawmakers made significant—and mostly positive—changes to our state tax code in the recently concluded legislative session. Although many observers late last year predicted an unproductive session dominated by election year politics, Congress’s hastily drafted federal tax overhaul upended those expectations. The federal tax changes delivered a massive windfall to wealthy individuals and large corporations, increased state revenue projections by hundreds of millions of dollars, and generated misguided calls for a second round of tax cuts at the state level. The General Assembly made a number of smart choices, like clarifying ambiguous language that could have cost working families millions and preventing yet another giveaway to superrich heirs. At the same time, legislators missed several opportunities to ensure Maryland has the resources needed to create thriving communities and respond to harmful policy choices the federal government could make in coming months. Four factors shaped Maryland’s fiscal landscape at the beginning…

Today marks the third anniversary of Freddie Gray’s death in police custody. Immediately following his death and the resulting anger and unrest in Baltimore, state lawmakers recommitted to investing in underserved neighborhoods across the city. Unfortunately, the more time that has passed, the more promised investments became the target of political power struggles. In the months leading up to the 2018 Maryland legislative session, violent crime in Baltimore reached an all-time high, children shivered in icy classrooms as heating systems failed to keep up with an unusually frigid winter, and it seemed as though policymakers had all but forgotten about the significant systemic issues that leave many Baltimoreans struggling to get by. In the end, legislators in Annapolis did advance a number of policies during the legislative session that represent a positive step forward for Baltimore, but also a few that won’t help. The 2018 Maryland legislative session was one…

With the most recent state revenue forecasts coming in $400 million higher than originally anticipated, the Maryland General Assembly had a little more flexibility than in recent years to restore cuts proposed in the governor’s budget. Lawmakers have also passed some legislation that increases investments in key public priorities like education, transportation, and economic security. Pre-K-12 Education In January, Gov. Hogan submitted a budget proposal that included few new investments in education and doubled down on a number of harmful cuts he has attempted in the past. In contrast, the adopted budget makes significant progress on Maryland’s education needs. Still, it leaves us far behind the public school system our children deserve. Here are some of the areas where the General Assembly improved on the governor’s budget: Set aside $207 million for implementing the recommendations of the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education (Kirwan Commission), which is reviewing the…

A new report from the Job Opportunities Task Force shows the many ways Maryland’s criminal law system ensnares people who are struggling to get by on low incomes—especially Black and Latinx Marylanders—pushing many into prison and ultimately making it harder to attain economic security. Policies that criminalize poverty undermine economic opportunity and needlessly waste public resources on prisons and court costs. This is a gross miscarriage of justice. There are many steps policymakers can and should take to break the link between financial hardship and criminalization. Simply by living their lives, low-income Marylanders and Marylanders of color are more likely to have contact with the criminal justice system, by no fault of their own. For example, in a state with limited public transit options, driving is a necessity. Three-quarters of working Marylanders commute by car each day, including two out of three Marylanders of color and 60 percent of low-income…

The Maryland Senate took an important step last week in approving a budget that will help ensure low-income Marylanders and people with disabilities can access high-quality care. The Senate-approved budget restores support for planned rate increases of at least 3 percent for providers who serve certain groups of Marylanders who get health coverage through Medicaid, including mental health care, substance use treatment, nursing home care, and services for people with disabilities.  The governor’s proposed budget cut provider rate increases to 1 or 2 percent. Maintaining adequate reimbursement rates is essential to ensure providers, whose cost of doing business generally rises with inflation, can afford to continue to see clients who rely on Medicaid for their health coverage. The General Assembly had previously approved higher annual rate increases for certain providers, to make up for years when reimbursement rates remained flat. The Senate’s budget also restores funding the state had promised…