I was chief of staff of the Maryland Department of Budget and Management from 2015 until 2023, so I know something about the budget situation that outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan left incoming Gov. Wes Moore.

Gov. Moore has claimed he inherited a fiscal crisis. I can only conclude that the governor and those closest to him have failed to comprehend the reality of Maryland’s fiscal situation in January 2023, when Moore took office.

Perhaps they should have listened to the outgoing Democratic Maryland state comptroller, Peter Franchot, who at the December 2022 meeting of the Board of Revenue Estimates warned the incoming administration that the “economic slowdown is here” and they should not spend the surplus.

Here is the reality of the Hogan surplus and the handoff to the Moore administration: Hogan left Moore $2.5 billion in the rainy day fund. That is Maryland’s savings account. Additionally, the Hogan administration left the Moore administration a draft budget that showed a bottom-line surplus of $2.7 billion. That draft budget funded the essential operations of Maryland government without caving into the demands of labor unions. County school systems received funding they were expecting, local law enforcement was assisted to protect citizens and county health departments received funding to provide essential services to low-income families.

Here is what happened next. The Moore administration ripped up the Hogan draft budget and embarked on a spending binge, shelling out $1.9 billion of the Hogan operating surplus on a liberal wish list of green energy dreams, social service programs and union demands for more pay, more government jobs and more benefits. Then, the estimate for revenue the state would take in was reduced by $400 million. Surprised? If you are, Gov. Moore, you and your closest advisers should be ashamed of your naïveté. Totally predictable! Don’t believe me? Ask Franchot.

All of this took place with the Kirwan Commission’s Blueprint for Maryland’s Future hanging over Maryland’s fiscal landscape. The blueprint commits Maryland taxpayers to spend an additional $32 billion over 10 years on various aspects of K-12 education including more teachers, teacher salary increases, less teaching and more out-of-classroom “collaboration.”

I have been in politics and government for 40 years. The Maryland General Assembly’s vote to override Gov. Hogan’s veto of the Kirwan Blueprint is the most irresponsible action I have ever witnessed by a legislative body. The legislature never dealt with how to pay for the teachers’ union nirvana. Never!

When you come to office with a handful of IOUs, paying the debt is problematic. When you try to pay off the entire debt in your first year it is political stupidity. Oblivious to real-world politics and economics, Moore and his team charged ahead on a sugar high of an election victory built on charm and soaring rhetoric.

Moore may want to have a quiet sit-down discussion with his attorney general, Anthony Brown. Hard-pressed and hard-working Maryland taxpayers will recall that as the lieutenant governor in 2014, Brown as the Democratic candidate for governor was forced to defend the 47 tax and fee increases of the O’Malley-Brown Administration. It did not go well.

Politicians get in trouble when a negative stereotype exists and they say or do something to confirm the stereotype. The negative stereotype of liberal Democratic officeholders is they spend too many taxpayer dollars and then raise taxes to cover the deficit created by spending more money than they had. Don’t believe me? Ask Anthony Brown.

Maryland state government needs to do less and spend less. Along the way, Gov. Moore should focus more on being a hands-on manager and less on being an inspirational speaker.

Kevin Igoe is the former chief of staff of the Maryland Department of Budget and Management. He served as a consultant to the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Housing Commission and as a legislative representative for the Community Home Lenders Association.