On Governor Hogan and his speech:

I was disappointed. I like him personally. I know his father, I know his family. Maybe he’ll grow into the job. I hope he will. I hope he’ll understand what’s doable and he’ll tell the truth to the people that this is what we can achieve working together. But the responsible thing is to say Governor we can’t do these things until we can afford them. And so it’s going to take adults to tell him that.

On the Governor’s proposal to eliminate the rain tax:

OK, fine. Let’s eliminate the rain tax. Who pays for it? It’s a federal mandate. So guess what. The counties are going to have to pay for it by themselves. The counties are supported by the taxpayers.

On the Governor’s proposal to eliminate personal property taxes:

He says he wants to eliminate the personal property tax. Guess what. That goes to the counties, not the State. One of my counties has got five Republican county commissioners. They’re going to resist that. They need that $3 million in personal property tax to pay for education. Again, it’s campaign promises brought into his State of the State speech—campaign promises that he knows can’t be kept by either himself or the General Assembly until prosperity comes.

Is Maryland in as bad a shape as the Governor describe?

Maryland is in great shape. We have the highest income of any state in the Union. We have the lowest poverty of any state in the Union. We have either the 1, 2, or 3 best schools of any state in the Union. He’s described the State like Arkansas or Alabama or Mississippi. I don’t know what state he’s talking about. This is a great state. We’re very proud of our state. We need just to move forward. We need a governor that wants to work with the General Assembly to move us forward, not backwards.