On Wednesday, I will release my proposal to balance the state budget. For the third year in a row, we will not raise the sales tax or the property tax. Through reforms in the tax code, nearly two-thirds of Marylanders will get a tax cut, and we will lower the corporate tax rate and focus on making Maryland more competitive and business-friendly. Additionally, our plan cuts spending by $2 billion. These bold actions are needed to prompt the kind of economic growth this moment requires and demands.

These aren’t easy decisions. Our budget responds to two storms that are swirling around our state. The first storm is a fiscal crisis nearly a decade in the making. Under the former administration, state spending increased by 70% in the seven years before I took office, while our economic growth flatlined.

We were spending, but we weren’t growing. Emergency COVID money from the federal government papered over a structural deficit that had been predicted by experts since 2017. Now, we face the worst fiscal crisis in at least 20 years — worse than that of the Great Recession. The second storm is a stark new policy direction from the Trump-Vance Administration that threatens to disrupt Maryland’s economy, which is already deeply reliant on the federal government.

In partnership with the General Assembly, it is our responsibility to help Marylanders weather these two storms and emerge stronger. We are guided by a single, clear principle: Build an economy that grows the middle class and gives everyone a pathway to work, wages and wealth. We will achieve that goal by creating jobs; prioritizing regulatory, procurement and permitting reform; and making it easier for businesses to choose Maryland, grow in Maryland and stay in Maryland.

I will propose new state investments in our ports and manufacturing, as well as leading industries to make Maryland the capital of innovation in quantum, cyber and artificial intelligence. With extraordinary assets on the leading edge of American ingenuity — like U.S. Cyber Command, federal labs and world-class universities — there is no reason why Maryland shouldn’t already lead these areas. But while we are asset-rich, we have been strategy-poor. Our budget applies the right strategy to ensure Maryland wins the decade.

We also need to promote policies that make Maryland a place where people want to live, work and thrive.

Our agenda preserves record funding for local law enforcement and K-12 education, promotes access to affordable health care and child care, and grows the housing market to drive down rent prices and gives more people the opportunity to become homeowners. When jobs are available, communities are safe and opportunity abounds, everyone wins.

Economic growth is our North Star. Anyone who suggests we can just cut our way to prosperity isn’t being honest. Anyone who suggests we can just tax our way to prosperity isn’t being honest either. The key to long-term success is consistent and robust economic growth. That is exactly what our budget delivers. At the same time, I am putting forward common-sense proposals to spend less by modernizing government. We need to make difficult cuts where necessary, reign in spending, tighten our belts and slow the implementation of certain mandated priorities to ensure all state programs are effective and sustainable. This push is both responsible and essential.

Our budget modernizes government in a way that preserves ample support for our administration’s top two priorities: public safety and public schools. We will also utilize strategic reserves while protecting a healthy balance in the Rainy Day Fund. We refuse to balance the budget on the backs of working families, so I will ask us Marylanders who have done exceptionally well financially to contribute a little more so we can make targeted and data-driven investments in economic growth. My administration has assembled a commonsense plan to make taxes simpler, fairer and, for the majority of Marylanders, lower.

Our plan for growing the economy builds on the progress of the last two years. In partnership with our state and local partners, we broke the back of violent crime statewide. We’ve created more than 50,000 new jobs and seen unemployment drop to one of the lowest rates in the country. We delivered historic funding for K-12 schools, advanced key priorities laid out in the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future and focused on the fundamentals of reading and mathematics.

We have passed two consecutive state budgets smaller than that of the previous year, something that hasn’t happened in nearly a decade. And together, our state successfully responded to the Key Bridge collapse — one of the greatest tragedies in our state’s history.

Not everyone will agree with our proposal. But even if our views conflict, I will always be direct with you about why we believe this is the best option for our children, workers and families.

Maryland will weather these two storms as we always have: together. We lead through partnership — offering solutions forged in principle, not partisanship; in data, not demagoguery; in ideas, not ideology. And if we summon the courage to put people first and politics last, we will win this moment and leave no one behind.

Wes Moore is the governor of Maryland.