Maryland politicians are sweating hard about what could happen in January, 2025 when President-elect Donald Trump assumes office as the 47th President of the United States. Headlines like the following by Caley Shannon and Andrea Duran, writing for SoMDNews.com, have been common:
Some of this would appear to be click-bait and perhaps, unwarranted fear-mongering. Successive U.S. Presidents, particularly from the GOP-side of the aisle (but not exclusively), have made campaign promises about “taking on entrenched interests” and right-sizing the federal government and work force. It usually doesn’t happen, at least not with any real speed or intention. Maybe President-elect Donald Trump, in a Grover Cleveland-esque second go-round will be different. As the 45th President, Trump’s Department of Agriculture did move some civil service people out of the D.C. area to the Kansas City region of the U.S. The total number of federal employees re-located was about 300 people, per this report in the Washington Post. Interestingly, it doesn’t appear that the move was ever reversed under President Joe Biden.
Campaign rhetoric is just that – rhetoric. It would take official acts of Congress to put “meat on the bones” of these kinds of mass agency moves (although some would be under exec agency leadership discretion) or federal agency staff reductions. It just seems unlikely to happen en masse, especially in such a divided Congress (the Republican majority in the U.S. House will be very small). The US Department of Defense (DoD) seems extremely unlikely to experience any reduction whatsoever… if anything, this department and all of its sub-entities will grow, in real terms, in the years ahead. Contractors to the DoD don’t seem to be hurting right now and likely won’t be hurting anytime in the near future — the world has geopolitical tension and hot conflicts in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.
Regarding the effects of all this on Maryland, it is definitely true that even small ripples to federal government civil service or executive agency employment can make waves in Maryland’s state economy and the state government’s budget. But this has been known for over a decade (the state’s own legislature asked a private consultant to study it back in 2016) — and still the local politicians from MoCo and other areas, sent to Annapolis, do almost nothing to make Maryland a competitive place to attract, grow, and retain larger businesses and workforces. In fact, worse, too often their regulations, taxes, and tax-code meddling make Maryland less likely to ever grab the attention of major employers.
What could Maryland’s politicians be doing to diversify our state’s tax base rapidly? Why not open up Western MD to actual energy exploration and extraction? Natural gas and oil are abundant there. Why not unleash prosperity in Baltimore by making it a truly prosperous American port city and logistics hub? Why not allow Maryland craft brewers (and distillers) to grow, hire, expand and source whatever materials they want, with minimal state government intervention? Because of heavy-handed regulations, Maryland lost Flying Dog ‘s brewery expansion several years ago, in Frederick County. The brewery subsequently decided to merge with another craft operation, and basically head north, to New York.
Why not simply get out of the business of picking “winner” and “loser” industries and let 1,000 economic flowers bloom? Let’s end the subsidies and tax credits to film producers and “wind energy” and instead get serious about growing the real economy.
Also, as a buddy account on X.com of ours points out, Maryland simply does not do a good job with higher education. Meaning – it doesn’t grow institutions of higher learning in the same way Virginia does — and it doesn’t have as big a range of local options. MoCo, MD in particular has basically no major, stand-alone four year university or college to rival VA in scope:
So, all of this is on the table and right there for the taking. If Maryland’s elected leaders want to diversify the state’s economy away from over-reliance on the Federal leviathan, it can be done. Might take some willpower, but it can definitely happen. But, it seems some in Annapolis, like the Maryland State Senate President, have more pressing things to oversee:
Footbaw! And here you thought the state of Alabama was football-obsessed.
