The battle to solve Maryland’s $3 billion budget deficit has prompted a debate between the state’s two most recent leaders, who are pointing fingers and blaming each other for the fiscal crisis.

On Wednesday, Democratic Gov. Wes Moore released his proposed budget to address the deficit, which he insists his administration is not responsible for creating. Instead, he blames “increased state spending and slow economic growth over the course of eight years before [he] took office” for the situation.

But as Moore’s Republican predecessor, former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, and others have noted, the state was in a much better financial position just two years ago.

In a series of Facebook posts this week, Hogan blamed Moore for the deficit, while noting that Moore described the state’s financial situation as “fortunate” upon taking office in January 2023. Hogan claimed his administration left Moore with “$5.5 billion in financial reserves” — $3 billion in the state’s rainy day fund and a structural surplus of $2.5 billion.

“Despite our warnings to protect the surplus, this progress has been squandered, and we are being told that tax hikes are on the way again,” Hogan wrote.

But publicly, Moore now sees things differently. In Annapolis on Wednesday, the governor bluntly said his administration “did not inherit a structural surplus.”

Instead, Moore said the extra funds were from federal COVID-19 aid, which had to be spent quickly, and he insists were not reflective of Maryland’s financial situation overall.

“COVID money is not a structural surplus,” Moore said. “Billions of dollars that came into the state did not represent a structural surplus in any way, shape or form. It basically was just one-time money.”

Asked to explain how the situation had changed so drastically in the last two years, spokesmen for Moore did not immediately respond.

Doug Mayer, a former spokesman for Hogan, said he didn’t know what changed for Moore in that time. Mayer said the governor needs to be more honest with state legislators — such as Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat — about how surplus money was spent.

“At the end of the day, the problem with Wes [Moore] is that he’s not willing to tell the truth about this particular situation because he can’t,” Mayer said. “…Wes does not want to blame or get into any kind of fight with the legislature.”

Mayer also pushed back on Moore’s claim that federal COVID-19 funds made up most of Maryland’s budget surplus. He says 85% of state budget funds in a given year are mandated spending, which limits governors’ flexibility in spending decisions while delegating this authority more toward the Maryland General Assembly.

Moore should have foreseen the deficit “a little bit earlier,” but asking who is responsible for the fiscal crisis is a “rather unfair question,” said Daraius Irani, a Towson University economist and vice president of strategic partnerships and applied research.

“It didn’t happen in two years. … A combination of both of them probably contributed to it,” Irani said.

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