Len Lazarick of Maryland Reporter writes at the Annapolitics blog:

Comptroller Peter Franchot told a meeting of nonprofit groups Monday that the government should “take a time out on tax increases” — while the group’s leadership continued to press for more tax hikes.

“If we don’t have fiscal responsibility, we are not going to be able to do what we want socially,” Franchot told more than 100 leaders of Maryland Nonprofits in Annapolis for a legislative preview. “We need to scrub the $32 billion budget.”

[...]

But Franchot said “we’re not confronting the root problems” in state government. He praised the nonprofits for their innovation and effectiveness in providing services, and criticized state bureaucrats faced with budget cuts who were willing to “throw you all overboard” while maintaining the same inefficiencies and ineffectiveness in their own agencies.
Franchot rejected “the draconian cuts” being proposed by “extremists on the right” and people on the left who want “to treat the business community as a bottomless pit.”

[...]

“People are losing their homes and what are we offering them in Maryland? Slot machines. No thank you. That’s not the Maryland I’m proud of.”