Doug Gansler | "Our Future"

Doug proposes eliminating wasteful duplicative Maryland state spending before raising taxes on the people.  Where is this transparency BROWN / O'MALLEY promised when they were swept int o office.  The reality is nothing BROWN and O'MALLEY have done has been transparent.  All important business has been conducted in secret meetings behind closed doors with the minutes often missing huge chunks of unaccounted time.  Gansler points out that whatever benefits Obama gave us by continuing the Bush tax cuts and fighting for his own tax plan have been taken way from Marylanders by the increases BROWN / O'MALLEY keep making.  Yet the two have done absolutely nothing to make the State competitive.  GANSLER's suggestions are all on point and all sound.  I wish he would go further and propose serious consideration of taxing ENERGY and THINGS, and eliminating the regressive TAX ON PEOPLE (PAYROLL TAXES)  alogether.  This solution is of necessity complex and would have to be phased in gradually.  If we wanted to, we could make it work.  It sure would make everyone get serious about conservation and saving the planet.  And the demand for PEOPLE would go way up.  Our current system is based on a myth: the myth that in order for most to do moderaely well, some must be marginalized, left behind, cast aside.  Seniors, young people, minority youth, youth in general, moms who want to return to the work place at least parrt time, the handicapped, blind, deaf, those who just don't seem to fit, those who do not find work within the time allotted by unemployent (often because they are overqualified and there just are no real jobs available) all wind up being marginalized.  The waste of our most precious resource - human beings and ingenuity - is mind-boggling.  Sure there are some folks who truly do not want to work; but most people do  want to work, to contribute, to do the best they can at something they truly love doing and to be valued and esteemed and recognized for it.  The system we have bought into does a very mediocre job of optimizing and engaging the fragile human resource.  In fact, true unemployment rates everywhere in this country are closer to 1 out of 2 (50 percent) when you count in all these marginalized workers.  Most would like to at least have some sort of work for which they are compensated, appreciated, and make a difference.  Our society does a very poor job of communicating to laborers that they as individuals do matter - or of showing them real appreciation (monetary or otherwise). A truly progressive tax plan would eliminate the regressive payroll taxes and over time phase in energy taxes which would of necessity  encourage conservation and help reverse climate change.  As for Brown, wa too littlee, way to late. I can't even believe after 8 years it has suddenly occurred to him that there are Marylanders outside a few select counties and that all of those Marylanders ought to be working; and that a HUGE number of them are suffering - suffering enormously - because of his failure to lead.  BROWN has had eight years.  He has proven he is an excellent flunky, yes man, and empty suit.  BROWN has also proven his ethics are highly suspect, if not outright corrupt - what with the revelations of JEFFREY THOMPSON, felon, who gave BROWN large sums of money, some of which BROWN in turn illegally outsourced - and the allegations leading back to Mayor Gray and across multiple states f some sort of secret covert government.  O'Malley was also implicatedhe by THOMPSON.  The Washington Post reports that at a minimum THOMPSON contributed more than $100K to Brown's 2008 campaign.  Way to little, way too late, and without a shred of  bona fide commitment or sincerity.  Give Brown the boot.  Give Doug Gansler and Jolene Ivey a chance to turn this mess around.  We cannot losse businesses or population much faster than we have been for the past 8 years.  Just look around and count the number of "foreclosures", empty retail spaces, businesses gone - most of which will never be coming back.  BROWN has been a miserable failure -  a Democrat in the tradition of Tammany Hall, certainly not FDR.