I am Martin O’Malley, Governor of Maryland - Ask Me Anything.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

Thanks for this opportunity. I wanted to do this AMA for two main reasons.

First, I signed a law today to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 hour. This was the centerpiece of our legislative agenda this year, and I wanted to highlight it, in hopes that others states and Congress will take similar action.

I also wanted to do this because I wanted to engage directly with the Reddit community about what we're doing in Maryland. As I've said before, we have tried to govern in a new and better way. You can go online right now, and see the 16 strategic goals we have set for our State’s progress, in the areas of job creation, education, security, sustainability, and health. https://data.maryland.gov/goals

On some of these, we’ve already exceeded our initial goals. On others, we’re making progress. And on a few, we still have a longer way to go. Progress requires accountability. But accountability means putting your commitment out there, for all of us to know and see, and hopefully to help drive. I wanted a chance to talk about this a little bit with the Reddit community, who I thought would appreciate what we're trying to do.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

Wow. This is an important question. I think the top issue facing our state will continue to be jobs.

People are working harder and harder, and yet falling father behind. We have to continue to strengthen and grow our middle class. That's been our focus for 7+ years. That's why I signed a bill today to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. That's why we invest record amounts in our public schools. And that's why we have tried to make college more affordable for more families.

These are really important challenges, and the work is never done.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

Is that what's going on here? I appreciate you pointing it out...

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

That is not true. I do like to exercise, but no treadmill in the office. I do have an acoustic guitar, though.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

I find it kind of irritating!

If you want to read all the answers I've written, go here: http://www.reddit.com/user/GovMartinOMalley

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

I don't think people appreciate the fact that $0.84 of every dollar (General Fund) goes to education, health, and public safety.

We have increased funding for schools to record levels while I was governor. You can read more about what we've done for schools here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gov-martin-omalley/investing-in-education-cr_b_4732755.html

As for a summary of the budget, here is a PowerPoint we put together when I released by my budget proposal in January: http://www.governor.maryland.gov/budget.html

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

A key part of our heritage as Marylanders is tied to the blue crab.

Restoring the health of the Chesapeake Bay is a huge challenge -- and one we've focused a lot of attention on. Part of that effort is devoted to increasing our blue crab and oyster populations. We passed a bill in 2011 to increase penalties for over-harvesting striped bass, blue crabs, and oysters. We have also used new technology to crack down on oyster poachers.

I wish there was an easy answer...but we're going to keep working to make our Bay healthier. One of the key things we focus on is lowering the nitrogen and phosphorous that enters the Bay. You can track our progress here: https://data.maryland.gov/goals/chesapeake-bay

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

I think high school students getting involved in robotics is a great idea. Frankly, anything we can do to get young people focused on the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and math) is smart.

We have 16 strategic goals, around opportunity, sustainability, health and public safety. One of those goals is to improve student achievement and school, college, and career readiness in Maryland by 25% by the end of 2015. We track STEM degrees as part of this goal. You can check out our progress here: https://data.maryland.gov/goals/education

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

Go Terps! We'll get a little closer to Kansas now that we're in the Big 10.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

We're working hard to improve the economy throughout the state. In the short term, we're always trying to attract more companies to invest and create jobs here. Over the long term, out biggest focus is on investing in education.

In October, we announced that Volvo expanded its powertrain facility in Hagerstown. http://www.governor.maryland.gov/blog/?p=9353 That brought 140 new jobs, and retained 1,300. No question there's a lot more work to do.

Also, the transportation infrastructure investment bill we passed last year will enable us to hire people building roads and bridges. One of the projects that's already been announced is construction of US 15/Monocacy Boulevard Interchange in western Maryland.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

When I was mayor, we had good success in combating this problem. There were 312 heroin overdose deaths in 1999. We drove that number down to 106 in 2008.

But heroin use is still a big problem in Maryland, as it is in lots of states across the country. We set 16 strategic goals...around the areas of opportunity, sustainability, health, and public safety. One of those goals is to reduce overdose deaths in Maryland by 20% by the end of 2015. You can track our progress on that goal here: https://data.maryland.gov/goals/substance-abuse

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

I answered this one below. Here it is again:

I signed decriminalization for small amounts of possession this year, signed medical marijuana last year, and another medical marijuana bill this year. I believe it's best for Maryland to learn from experiments underway in Colorado and Washington and to be guided according to whether more good than harm is done.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

We didn't remove any answers. Some may have gotten lost in the comments...but we didn't remove any.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

There was a strong response on both sides of this.

I understand that there are plenty of people who were opposed to the bill, but it was an important thing to do to protect Maryland families.

And we worked hard to balance the need to protect families, with the need to safeguard the rights of law-abiding gun owners. The law does not prohibit lawful citizens from obtaining or owning a handgun; does not require additional licensing procedures for hunting rifles and shotguns; does not force citizens who lawfully possessed an assault weapon prior to the bill’s passage to surrender their weapon or to register it; does not require companies who manufacture assault weapons in Maryland to stop production; and does not require current lawful gun owners to retroactively obtain a license.

I get that people were upset. But we tried to enact commonsense reforms, and I'm proud of the bill we passed.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

Gov. Schwarzenegger is awesome. We did a panel together in Nevada last year about energy. He did not offer me a ride in his tank.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

We did a little more digging on this. Not only are we serving more people, but we've increased funding too -- we've increased funding for the Maryland Mental Health Administration by 33% since 2007.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

No one was more frustrated than I was about the fact that our health exchange website didn't work properly when we launched. But our health exchange is more than a web site, and we worked hard to overcome the technical problems. We have enrolled about 329,000 people thus far, exceeding the goal we set of 260,000. I often say that we haven't always succeeded at first, but we have never given up. We learn from both success and failure.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

I answered this one below. Our agriculture industry is very important in Maryland -- we can protect the Bay and have a strong ag industry at the same time.

We set 16 strategic goals, around opportunity, sustainability, health, and public safety. One of those 16 goals deals specifically with making our Bay healthier. You can track our progress on that goal here: https://data.maryland.gov/goals/chesapeake-bay

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

I don't know, I'm having fun! This is my first AMA. I had to step away to sign a bunch of bills, and I'm glad to be back.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

I tried to answer as much as I could this morning before I went in to sign some bills -- including an increase in Maryland's minimum wage. I think I answered about 20 this morning, I'm going to try to answer some more now.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

I answered this below -- I'm pasting my answer again. Also, here's a blog post I wrote about some of the work we've done on education: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gov-martin-omalley/investing-in-education-cr_b_4732755.html

First of all, we now have the #1 rated schools in the country, have done more than any other state to hold down the cost of college, and we continue to exercise the fiscal discipline necessary to sustain these investments while also keeping a triple A bond rating.

My administration inherited a 1.7 billion dollar deficit. So the vast majority of tough fiscal decisions -- a combination of cuts and revenue measures -- were actually made before the recession hit. each decision was unpopular singularly, but together they were the tough choices necessary to give our children a future with more opportunity rather than less. We have achieved the second best rate of new job growth in our region since the recessionary low, the highest median income of any state in the country, and we pay the third lowest taxes as percentage of income of any state in the union.

And yes, we legalized gaming, saved horse racing and made record increased investments in education every year of our Administration.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

We've increased mental health services by 68%. In 2013, over 153,000 Marylanders received mental health services.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

As required specifically by statute, the vast majority of state revenues from gaming go to fund education. This is a part, but only a part, of the increased investment we have made as a people to improve public education in Maryland--we have increased funding roughly from $4 billion annually to $6 billion annually. Check out this link (http://www.governor.maryland.gov/blog/?p=9788) for all authoritative sources and citations.

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

When I was elected mayor of Baltimore in 1999, our city had become the most violent and addicted city in America. Over the following ten years, Baltimore achieved the biggest reduction in part 1 crime of any major city in America. Baltimore city school students are achieving and graduating at higher levels than they have in forty years. The progress continues. Under Armour...defend this house: "land of the free, home of the brave."

GovMartinOMalley · 1年前

Some of them are state roads, some are county roads. Send me the location and we'll look into it.

GovMartinOMalley

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