Just who was the biggest budget sinner?; Md. governor's race plays out through the haze of revisionist claims on taxes, spending
Unemployment, a shaky recovery, mounting government debt and a host of other fiscal anxieties have distilled into a single question dominating the Maryland governor's race:</br></br>Whom do voters trust more to control taxes and spending: Gov. Martin O'Malley or his Republican rival, former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.?</br></br>In a state that has generally fared better in the recession than others -- but has also raised a bevy of taxes over the past eight years -- each is racing to cast his opponent as a tax-happy, out-of-control big spender.</br></br>In so doing, each has concocted a convenient history of his opponent's time in Annapolis and assigned sinister motives that often only make sense in the candidates' jumbled versions of the past.</br></br>The two candidates' pithy campaign lines about egregious tax and spending changes almost always omit any nod to the dire budget situation the other faced. And through a hail of numbers, they each grossly inflate totals for the other's spending and tax increases by counting the same cuts, taxes and fees over and over again.