Glendening Gives Self High Marks, but Improvement Needed
This is report card season in classrooms and it's no different in the Annapolis office of Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D), who has come up with his own grades on the steps he has taken to help the state's struggling economy.</br></br>Glendening recently compiled a tally of nearly 18,000 jobs that companies and federal agencies have added or pledged to add in Maryland over the next few years. Also on the list were more than 8,000 jobs that might have left the state but have been preserved. In many cases, a loan or a tax break from his administration helped nail down the job gains, the governor declared.</br></br>Even if one gives full credit to Glendening for these jobs -- and in some cases, that is a stretch -- Maryland continues to receive a "needs to improve" on job creation. With federal agencies and their contractors downsizing, job growth in the state is averaging less than 1 percent per year -- about 16,700 net new jobs over the past year, according to the latest count. The only reason the unemployment rate is stable is that the number of people seeking work in Maryland is growing just as slowly.</br></br>"There is no such thing as a quick fix" for the combination of problems plaguing the state's economy, he said. In time, its assets -- a prime location along East Coast transportation routes, a large supply of scientists and engineers and some superb high-tech institutions -- will pull it through, he maintains. "Unlike some of the naysayers, the doom-and-gloom people, I am an optimist," Glendening said.</br></br>But while Glendening urges patience, Maryland is losing ground to neighboring states whose business, sales and personal taxes are lower than Maryland's, said Richard P. Clinch, who directs regional economic studies for the University of Baltimore's business school.