Two extremely certified candidates are vying to change into Maryland’s subsequent comptroller, whose shorthand descriptor — state tax collector — glosses over the job’s broader transient and actual energy.
Maryland
Opinion | Barry Glassman for Maryland comptroller
We recommend Mr. Glassman, a standard Republican who rejects the GOP’s MAGA wing and would take a restrained method to the workplace, managing it as supposed by the state’s legal guidelines and structure. He represents the one reasonable probability on this election cycle for any Republican to win statewide workplace in Maryland. The opposite two GOP nominees on the Nov. 8 poll — Del. Dan Cox, for governor, and Michael Anthony Peroutka, for lawyer common — are extremists who path by greater than 20 share factors within the polls.
One-party rule in any state is a recipe for immoderation and poor governance. Maryland’s legislature has lengthy been managed by Democrats, with the celebration’s liberal wing ascendant. Over the previous eight years, solely Gov. Larry Hogan, a reasonable Republican, has supplied a examine on Democratic dominance in Annapolis. Within the course of he gained large reputation in Maryland, the place Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 ratio.
Mr. Hogan has shunned the opposite two GOP candidates on the statewide poll, however embraced Mr. Glassman, whom he sees in his personal mildew — a sane, conventional Republican untainted by the “massive lie” and former president Donald Trump’s cult of persona.
Mr. Glassman has the suitable perspective on the job he seeks, which oversees an workplace of greater than 1,000 staff. As comptroller, he could be one among three members of Maryland’s highly effective Board of Public Works, which might make or break main state contracts for highways, rail traces and different essential infrastructure. In that capability, he would assist Mr. Hogan’s wise plan to widen parts of the Beltway and Interstate 270 — the one believable strategy to forestall a lot worse site visitors in the long term on highways already infamous for a few of the nation’s worst congestion; Ms. Lierman opposes it.
Mr. Glassman would take a accountable method to a different key a part of the comptroller’s job: serving to oversee the state’s pension fund, price roughly $68 billion initially of this 12 months. In that capability, he says he would focus not on politics however on funding returns that guarantee advantages for tens of hundreds of retired academics, state police, judges and others. Ms. Lierman, in contrast, needs to leverage the fund to advance her coverage views, directing investments towards or away from firms relying on their priorities. We would agree with a few of these coverage preferences — for instance, in favor of corporations that embrace measures to fight local weather change, shun Russia or assist struggling communities. However we share Mr. Glassman’s reluctance to make use of the pension fund as an ideological device.
Each candidates are succesful. Mr. Glassman is a greater match for the job.