A $3 billion hole in the next state budget — and an even worse five-year forecast — has, as everyone acknowledges, no easy solutions.
New taxes or deep cuts to existing programs. Breaking down barriers to spur economic growth or tapping reserves and pushing tough decisions to another year.
The debate is gearing up to have widespread impacts no matter which approach Moore and Democratic lawmakers take — both on the programs serving millions of their constituents and, potentially, in 2026, when all statewide officials are up for reelection.
Moore, the most public face of state government and a rising national figure who some have said could be a presidential contender in 2028, has the most at risk, especially if he and the legislature go down the route of tax hikes, said Anne Arundel County-based pollster Patrick Gonzales.
“The immediate effect would be a visceral sort of disagreement and dissatisfaction,” Gonzales said after releasing a poll last week showing both Moore’s sustained popularity and the public’s distaste for tax increases to solve the deficit. “Over several months or by the time the next election starts rolling around, you’d have a much better sense of how that would sink in.”
Underscoring the “political dilemma” for Moore is the poll’s finding that about two-thirds of voters who strongly approve of the governor’s job performance also oppose raising the income, sales or property taxes to solve the deficit, Gonzales said.
“It helps to have 60 percent approval rather than 52 percent approval when you’re doing this,” Gonzales said. “But politicians do not like spending political capital. That’s just the human response.”
Scheduled to release his full budget proposal on Wednesday, Moore said this week he maintains a “very high bar” for taxes and will lean on cuts that will trim state spending by $2 billion.
The cuts will be “aggressive” — and he’s ready, he said, for the push and pull as those who rely on state funding urge him to take a different approach.
“I’m very used to pushback and the tussle. I’ve had it my whole life. It’s fine, and it’s a part of the process,” Moore said in an interview in his office, adding he’ll “hear everyone’s perspective” before the budget is finalized this spring.
The Pushback
Ever-optimistic even while delivering sobering messages about the state’s fiscal situation, Moore has insisted he can still accomplish the ambitious goals he set when he entered office, from supporting the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reform plan to working toward the elimination of child poverty.
For advocates like Nate Golden, a Baltimore City teacher who leads the Maryland Child Alliance, that vision doesn’t appear possible without raising more money.
Moore’s unwillingness to touch taxes isn’t fiscal responsibility, Golden said — it’s a disappointment that’s contributed to his loss of faith in elected officials’ ability to tackle child poverty.
“I’m personally at a point where I don’t expect transformational or other policies that catch us up until we have new Democratic leadership in this state,” said Golden, whose group last year campaigned for the “baby bonus” referendum in Baltimore that was withheld from voters’ ballots after a court challenge.
The idea — to provide $1,000 in taxpayer-backed payments to parents of every new child born in the city — was akin to a “baby bonds” program Moore proposed during his 2022 campaign. Moore has not advocated for the idea since becoming governor, though he’s often said eliminating childhood poverty is his ultimate motivation.
Other laws he’s sponsored have taken steps toward that goal, including an expansion of Maryland’s $500 child tax credit and a 2024 law, called the ENOUGH Act, that prioritizes communities with high concentrations of poverty for state resources.
The child tax credit expansion, which also extended the earned income tax credit, was estimated to cost more than $170 million per year at the time it passed. The ENOUGH Act, in tighter budget times a year later, had $15 million in related spending.
Making the kinds of strides Moore has talked about requires more money and the trend, Golden and others say, is moving in the wrong direction.
“We will continue to advocate for Wes Moore’s rhetoric to match his policy,” Golden said. “But it just doesn’t. And if he does run for national office and he has a poor record on child poverty I hope it’s something that comes back to bite him.”
Moore has dismissed questions about whether he would want to someday run for president — questions which started before he was even elected and picked up last year around the time President Joe Biden stepped away from his reelection campaign — by saying he’s singularly focused on Maryland.
Still, Moore’s activity nationally is growing, putting him on the short list for a Democratic Party that will be scrambling to find its footing and rally behind a new presidential nominee in four years.
“He’s definitely a rock star as it relates to his national profile out there,” said Kieffer Mitchell, a former Democratic Baltimore City councilman and state delegate who became Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s top legislative liaison. “So this budget definitely presents a challenge to him and I think that’s why you’re seeing him holding a higher bar for taxes, because the governor is ambitious, his team is ambitious.”
Mitchell said Moore has found the correct balance. He’s “set the right tone” both by focusing on economic growth for the budget conversations and strategically by communicating his vision well to the public, Mitchell said.
“The same thing happened when I was in the Hogan administration,” Mitchell said of the constant chatter that Hogan was positioning himself to run for president, which he publicly considered and then declined to do. “When it came to the legislative session… he was traveling around the state, working with the legislature, particularly on the tax cuts and those kinds of things and his priorities. I think with Gov. Moore, once he presents that budget, he goes out and sells it to the people of Maryland and he sells it to a point where he is the adult with a very sober, serious tone to say, ‘This is the reality and this is why my budget reflects this reality.’”
As he takes a deep dive on every taxpayer-backed program to understand which ones still make sense to fund, that reality can also still include his priorities, Mitchell said. The ENOUGH Act and the service year program for recent high school graduates have been some of the governor’s signature accomplishments, and they will likely continue to be funded amid the larger fiscal uncertainty, he said.
“(He’s) a popular governor. He has a lot of political capital to spend on those priorities,” Mitchell said.
Whether Moore is able to significantly boost those programs or start new ones is another question.
After the tax credit expansions and other laws to support retired and active military members in 2023 cost hundreds of millions of dollars, his legislative package in 2024 had a relatively small financial footprint of about $33 million at a time when lawmakers entered the session needing to fix a roughly $1 billion cash deficit. By the time lawmakers started the annual 90-day session last week, that number for the next year had tripled.
The fate of other Moore campaign promises like the Red Line will rely on both a turn of fortune at the state level and significant lift from a federal government led by incoming President Donald Trump.
Moore said this week he remained committed to improving east-west transit in Baltimore, but he did not answer directly when asked about its prospects and whether it should remain a light rail, a more expensive method costing up to $7.2 billion. Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat, has said the Red Line is more unlikely given Trump’s win and the state’s unstable transportation funding system.
With an update to the six-year statewide transportation plan and Moore’s separate budget due this week, the process for sorting out the details of what’s possible — and who will be in the crosshairs — is just beginning.
“Every decision we make will have a marginal impact on choices by business leaders and by families moving forward,” Senate President Bill Ferguson, a Baltimore Democrat who has said he’ll consider tax proposals this year, said Friday. “I am fully confident that we will balance.”
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