Earlier this month, Maryland limped its way to a balanced budget, and Marylanders gained valuable insights into the governing philosophies of our political leaders. These insights are powerful and can help us predict how our leaders will react when faced with similar circumstances in the future. Marylanders now understand that our leaders in the legislature, and an overwhelming majority of individual legislators, are unwilling to aggressively reduce spending, even if they showed a willingness to cut $2 billion in planned expenditures that slowed the rate of spending growth.

Balancing our budget meant raising $1.6 billion in new taxes and fees. The legislature deserves a modicum of credit for understanding that it would have hobbled Maryland’s struggling economy and harmed its citizens had it closed the entire $3.3 billion deficit through increased taxes and fees. But the size of the increases it did approve were still huge, and there’s no reason to believe that Speaker of the House Adrienne Jones, President of the Senate Bill Ferguson or Gov. Wes Moore will shy away from another large tax increase the next time the state faces a fiscal crisis. Past behaviors are powerful predictors of future actions, and Marylanders now have a powerful indication of how our political leaders will react to fiscal challenges. The new $5 tax on tires is a good example of a state government perpetually on the hunt for creative ways to raise revenue. The 75-cent tax on deliveries and the 2-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks, neither of which were approved this year, are two more powerful examples of the same aggressive search for revenue. With the tire tax already signed into law, the taxes that weren’t approved give Marylanders a good idea of the things our legislature and governor will consider taxing in the next fiscal crisis.

Maryland’s economy is barely growing, and reductions in the federal workforce are eroding our tax base. Spending on the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future will recreate a multibillion-dollar deficit when the plan is fully implemented in the years ahead.

Higher taxes on high earners, along with the new digital services tax, may drive people and businesses to neighboring states. There’s a high likelihood that our next fiscal crisis is near.

The decisions made by our legislative leaders and our governor are rooted in the idea that government is well-positioned to provide an extensive list of services. They genuinely believe these services are worth the cost of extracting additional money from well-off individuals and businesses. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this idea, and it forms the foundation of center-left political ideology. My belief in that idea’s validity is the reason why I’ve voted exclusively for Democrats, with one exception in Maryland’s 2024 Senate race, for the past 25 years. But there are limits to how much revenue a state government can extract from its population, and the idea that spending can continue to grow indefinitely is catastrophically flawed. The budget signed into law by Gov. Moore this year may not reach those limits, but it does move the state closer to approaching those boundaries, if only incrementally. The next series of tax and fee increases that history suggests our political leaders will implement when our fiscal crisis reappears will take us another incremental step toward truly crushing levels of taxation. Without a change in political ideology, Maryland will continue to suffocate itself with ever-increasing taxes.

Beyond the willingness of the legislature to raise huge amounts of money from new taxes and fees, Marylanders gained important insights into their governor. They saw a leader completely unwilling to fight for the more restrained spending in the budget he originally proposed to the legislature and entirely willing to perpetuate the myth that a previous administration had created all our state’s problems. Moore knew enough in 2023 to be thankful for the sound condition of our state’s finances and knew enough in 2025 to propose significant delays to the implementation timeline of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. In the end, he abandoned both sensible positions for the sake of party unity and political expediency, claiming that his administration inherited a fiscal catastrophe and accepting a modest adjustment in one of many timelines associated with the Blueprint rather than make it solvent. The first claim about his inherited fiscal catastrophe is patently untrue. The second is either a massive misjudgment or another example of willful deception. Maryland Democrats know better. Even if we support relatively higher levels of spending and are sympathetic with the governor’s claimed goals, we shouldn’t fall for the same trick we so easily identify in the behavior of President Donald Trump. Just because a politician keeps repeating something doesn’t make it true.

Maryland made it through the 2025 budget process without the truly massive tax and fee increases that would have doomed our future growth. But hard times lie ahead, and our leaders once again showed their proclivity to raise taxes in support of higher spending remains intact. More troubling is the emergence of a governor who seems intent on pleasing everyone, claiming victories and deflecting blame. If Gov. Moore believes in his policies, if economic growth is our north star, he should use his unique position to explain his positions to Maryland voters, even if that means disagreeing with his colleagues in the legislature.

Most importantly, he should be honest about the origin of this year’s deficit. That’s the only way Marylanders will know we can trust him when he offers explanations in the future.

Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, a former member of the Veterans for Hogan Coalition and a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He lives in Annapolis.