This morning, Governor Hogan joined WBFF Morning News to discuss affordability and cost-of-living issues in Maryland, including new taxes and fees that went into effect today. Last week, Governor Hogan announced his five-point affordability plan to make life more affordable in Maryland during a press conference near the Bay Bridge, where in 2015 he cut tolls for the first time in 50 years.
Watch Governor Hogan’s full interview on WBFF.
On New Taxes and Fees:
“The economy is really tough right now and struggling Maryland families and retirees are paying. They’re struggling to try to pay the bills because everything is more expensive—groceries are more expensive, gasoline is more expensive. And now they’re heading down to the beach, it’s gonna cost more for them to take the kids down the boardwalk or buy french fries and go to the amusement park.
“The legislature failed to rein in some of the mandated spending, which they should have, it is something I warned about at the end of my term. It’s now been a year and a half and they haven’t taken those actions. We’re now in the worst shape we’ve been in 10 years. It’s going back to the days of Martin O’Malley where you have multi billion dollar deficits and hundreds of new taxes which are taking effect today.”
On Immigration:
“The legislature pushed to make Maryland a sanctuary state—I stopped that and fought that. But counties can make their own decisions, so there are now four or five counties that have made the decision that they don’t wanna cooperate with ICE, including Prince George’s County where they released a couple of 17 year olds and went out and killed a 14 year old girl her body was found in Anne Arundel County. I just spoke with Rachel Morin’s mom, Patty, a couple of days ago and that’s another kind of situation. But we are releasing violent criminals into the neighborhoods, without following federal federal law, by notifying ICE when they put a detainer in saying, ‘Hey, if these bad guys come out we want to know about it’ and several jurisdictions have made the decision to not to notify them—it’s just outrageous and unacceptable. It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.”
On the State of the Race:
“I have been saying from day one that I am a huge underdog in this race. We have not elected a Republican senator from Maryland in 44 years—even though I left office with a lot of people thinking I did a good job as governor, I’m not taking anything for granted … I’m meeting people everywhere and trying to convince them to give me a chance to go down to Washington and clean up the mess just like I did in Annapolis.”
