My answer to the overall problem is long-range fiscal planning, and
early this year I initiated studies designed to determine what our needs
will be in the future and how we will be equipped to finance them. I
have just received my first report from the planners, or fiscal experts,
and I am told that the present revenue trend will permit us a budget
growth of $10 million a year, whereas the rate of increase in spending is
$17 million a year. We know if this trend continues, appropriations will
equal revenues by 1963 and exceed them in years after. Of course,
changes of policy in taxing or spending will change this relationship.
Our picture of the future is still incomplete because of the insepara-
bility of state problems and local problems. We expect soon to get the
full picture by extending our studies into the fiscal problems of the polit-
ical subdivisions.
It is my hope that through long-range projections of spending and
revenues we will be able to identify the problem completely. When we
do, I think it will be possible for us to reconcile the pressures to spend
with the public's ability to pay.
ADDRESS, KITZMILLER LIONS CLUB
KITZMILLER
October 26, 1959
It is a delight to me always to come to this beautiful mountainous
section of Maryland, and I am happy this evening to have this oppor-
tunity to speak to the Lions Club of Kitzmiller.
This is the season in which officials of your state government are busily
engaged in the preparation of budgets, and it occurred to me that a
discussion of the financial condition and the financial prospects of the
State might be of some profit and interest to you....
It is exceedingly gratifying to me to report to you that the State of
Maryland is not faced with a budgetary crisis. The State is, in fact, in
reasonably good financial condition, and, while it is much too early to
present details of the revenue and spending program for the next fiscal
year, it can be said that the prospects look good.
Maryland has a good financial program, based on what I consider to
be a sound and stable tax structure. For our general fund, as you may
know, we rely mainly on two sources of revenue—the sales tax and the
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