Pittman and Friends Podcast
Welcome to Pittman and Friends, the curiously probing, sometimes awkward, but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Steuart Pittman - that’s me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader, or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear.
This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County Government, so don’t expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government - of, by, and for the people.
Pittman and Friends Podcast
Governor Wes Moore on Budgeting, Poverty, and Being Present
In this episode, County Executive Pittman recalls their first meeting and Governor Moore's inauguration as they discuss the important work being done to make a positive impact on the people of Maryland – from budget-making to simply being present. Delve into the historical significance of Moore's inauguration, graced by the presence of Oprah, and learn how personal histories intertwine with the present to shape a vision for the future.
Moreover, learn more about the intricacies of finance and policy as Governor Moore discusses the critical role budgets play in reflecting government priorities. Together, they explore the challenges of maintaining fiscal balance while making strategic investments in public services like childcare and transportation. This episode equips listeners with a deeper understanding of how economic growth and robust rainy day funds are essential in preparing for future challenges and ensuring fiscal stability for Maryland.
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Welcome to Pittman and Friends. The curiously probing, sometimes awkward, but always revealing conversations between your host, Anne Arundel County Executive Stuart Pittman - that's me - and whatever brave and willing public servant, community leader or elected official I can find who has something to say that you should hear. This podcast is provided as a public service of Anne Arundel County, so don't expect me to get all partisan here. This is about the age-old art of government of, by, and for the people. Alright, y'all are in for a treat this week. I have my really good friend on, you know, Pittman and Friends, here. The governor, the governor of the state of Maryland, the 63rd Governor of the State of Maryland, Wes Moore. Welcome, Wes Moore.
Governor Wes Moore:Thank you, CE. Great to be with you, man.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah. I know we've both been looking forward to this, Wes.
Governor Wes Moore:Yes, I have.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And I want to say that this will be. It'll come out in about a week, but for folks, the Governor is here in Anne Arundel County, at Kinder Farm Park right now. His whole cabinet will be showing up in about 45 minutes and he's doing his cabinet meeting here. And then we're going to take the group out and we're going to see some cool stuff around the county, but we may or may not have time to get into that. Let's start with you and me.
Governor Wes Moore:Okay, I love it. I love it.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:How we met and how I ended up on Team Moore. Yes, okay. So, you remember the first meeting? It was by Zoom.
Governor Wes Moore:It was by Zoom. I do remember. I do remember, and I don't know if you even know this. How it actually started happening was I did an interview early and this was like really, really early. I was just this candidate that no one was paying any attention to and all this kind of stuff. And one of the last questions in an interview asked me. He said, "who are some of the people who you really admire and who you think are just really good leaders, local leaders in the state?" and the first name I said was Steuart Pittman.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:How did you even know who I was. Your mom? Your mom told you, right, because she lives in Pasadena.
Governor Wes Moore:She lives in Pasadena, you're her county executive. And I was like, and I started explaining, I was like I just I really love how he leads. I love how he listens. I love how he finds common ground and how he never, you know, leaves his values. And Sophia Silvia, who you know, a friend of both of ours. She was like, "you know, I know him, and she was like would you want to? You know, would you want to have a conversation? And I was like, because I said, I was like, "I really want his endorsement.
Governor Wes Moore:And I was like and I said,"E ven past running for governor, I just want him to think that I'm a good guy. And she was like oh, I can help to arrange it" and so hence the interview was how she got on her radar that she was like Westmore's, a very big store of pitman fans.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So when she came to me, I had heard your name, but I couldn't remember where I'd heard it from. And my first question, of course, was well, "What do you think Does he have a chance? And she said, absolutely, he's going to win. And I said, okay, I better meet him. So, yeah, we met by Zoom and, yeah, that went well. The next thing I did was I Googled you and I found out that you'd written a bunch of books. So I got all the books and in fact I think I have one of them here, the Other, Wes Moore. I read that. I read Five Days, which was about Baltimore City after Freddie Gray. And I read the Work.
Governor Wes Moore:The Work.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That was the one I liked the most, and we may talk about that a little bit. And then, yeah, I endorsed you. Yeah, we did that on stage, early, early.
Governor Wes Moore:Early.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, I know I was one of the first. People thought I was a little bit nuts. We did it on State Circle. It was me and my family and you and your family. I think nobody else was there.
Governor Wes Moore:That's exactly right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:A couple of press shows?
Governor Wes Moore:That's exactly right.
Governor Wes Moore:That's exactly right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah yeah, and then there was an inauguration, you know, not that long after.
Governor Wes Moore:Which is beautiful.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, it was. It was. Well, it was a huge honor to me. When you asked me to emcee your inauguration. I'm like, "Oh my God, seriously. You know, is there a mistake here? So, and the coolest part of that was the fact that Oprah was there. I was too embarrassed to talk to her in the beginning. But after I gave my little introductory thing, she didn't speak to me, but she across the stage with her mouth. She mouthed the words "hat was amazing.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Okay, okay, that was my bucket list.
Governor Wes Moore:You know, she still talks about your speech at the inauguration.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:No kidding.
Governor Wes Moore:She still does. I mean, it was so. Hearing you tell that story, hearing you tell the story of your family, of your background, and just that full circle moment of you now saying and now we're here to inaugurate the first African American in the history of the state of Maryland. She still, to this day, talks about that story.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, and it wasn't that long before that that my wife, who does a lot of genealogical research, found that my great-great-great-great-grandfather, George M. Steuart, who was the first of my lineage to come over from Scotland to here, actually built his house exactly where you live, where the governor's mansion is, and, of course, he was a plantation owner. He was actually a Mayor of Annapolis at one point and talked about how he had made his wealth on the back of enslaved Africans. And here you are as our governor. It was pretty amazing.
Governor Wes Moore:It was an amazing day.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So, let's actually jump into the serious stuff, okay. Okay, the hard stuff, yes.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Al right, yes, and obviously you came in and you said from before day one that there was a structural deficit, that you know the Department of Legislative Services has been talking about for years and the time has come to address it. And here you are this year with a budget to do so, with $2 billion in cuts, another billion dollars in revenue and tax reform. But I want to read a quote from your book, "The Work you talk about. Okay, it's on page 38. It's near the bottom of page 38. And you're talking about a decision that you were about to make to go and work in finance on Wall Street. And you said, "I realized how much I wanted to be involved in policy.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:This was after working in the White House with Condoleezza Rice and all the work you did there and how inspired you were in policy. "But after my experience in budgets and budgeting there, I also realized how woefully ill-equipped I was when it came to understanding the intricacies of finance. That was the sort of thing I'd need to master if I was to turn my passion for policy into a profession. So you did that. Is it helping you now?
Governor Wes Moore:100%, yeah.
Governor Wes Moore:You know. It's interesting because you realize, uh, all policy making really is, it's budgeting. Because you can see where priorities are lying and what things you're going to focus on when you look at budgets, and and what's really interesting, you could do the same thing for everybody in their everyday life, right? If you show me, if you show me what you spent money on last month, I can probably tell you what's important to you, right? Because that's what you're going to fund and that's what you're going to prioritize. And government is really no different. And it was interesting for me because I studied international relations and economics in college and then international relations in grad school. But I started working in finance and I realized two things very quickly. One, I really have more of a quantitative brain than a qualitative one. Words are much harder for me. Numbers come much easier for me.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That's shocking to hear because you're so good at words.
Governor Wes Moore:No, I mean, it's much harder for me to process words than numbers and I realized it was actually. I enjoyed it and it was easy, as I went to the world of finance and worked for Wall Street firms and all that kind of stuff. The second thing was this. I really like numbers because they don't have opinions. Yeah, yeah, right, the numbers are the numbers
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And they don't lie to you.
Governor Wes Moore:They don't lie to you.
Governor Wes Moore:Right, you can spin anything.
Governor Wes Moore:You can't spin numbers and I think that that's the thing that when I came in and thought about even just like this structural deficit. I said, "guys, this is screaming at us and you can't spin it away. And the thing that we realized over the past few years you can't COVID money, it away either. Either you were getting funding from the federal government, which was really important capital to make sure that we were not laying off nurses, to make sure that people could continue getting their treatments. To make sure that we could still have government agencies that were functioning and working. It was really important capital that the federal government provided to the states.
Governor Wes Moore:But, we also knew those days were done.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, people are so confused when they see um a surplus at the end of one administration. That is the surplus that year, and then they find out there's no money the next year. Well, it's because one-time money is one-time money. So money so, uh, the COVID money, uh is gone, the federal money. And then you know the the other thing that happens, and I think electeds do this kind of thing all the time and then they sort of dump the problem on the next one.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I'm going to try not to do that when I leave this place but, it's common practice. And you know, in the last administration it was not filling positions in the government that really desperately needed to get filled. So you came in and, of course you know, had to commit to filling those positions to deliver services to the residents. And that's where those one-time big fund balances at the end of the year came from. They just didn't spend the money in the budget because nobody wanted to work there.
Governor Wes Moore:That's exactly right, and when you look at how that one-time money was utilized again. I think it does go back to show us what you prioritize, right. So what were some of the things we put it towards? We went towards being able to fortify some of these agencies that have completely atrophied, and you had vacancies of 20 and 30%, and it's not that.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:We felt it at the County Department of Health and COVID, Department of Labor. When people were trying to get their unemployment, it was a disaster.
Governor Wes Moore:I mean people waiting 18 months for unemployment insurance. It's this kind of thing. It's like you had to make sure that you had government actually working.
Governor Wes Moore:We had to make sure that we were investing in child care.
Governor Wes Moore:That we made historic investments in child care, because if you need to get an economy going, it means you have to create pathways for people to get back into the economy. And that means stop asking parents to make a decision of is my child going to be okay or can I go back into the workforce that we made historic investments in things like transportation assets. There were certain things that were just so deeply neglected that we said, if we have a chance and a usage for capital to be able to get this economy growing and get this economy moving, that that was an important thing. Not to mention where the recommended balance for the rainy day fund was at 5% and we had it in our first year in this proposed budget, the rainy day balance is at 8%. So we felt that part of the good uses of capital was make sure you're fortifying the rainy day because when storms happen, as they're happening right now, that you're able to then have the flexibility and the resources to be able to move forward.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yep, yep.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So you have the short-term problem of doing a budget this year, and then you have the longer-term problem which is way more important, way more important. And the way you've talked about that, and I love this, because it is so true that in order to have no structural deficit, you have to have economic growth.
Governor Wes Moore:That's it.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And you've pointed out that the state of Maryland had 3% GDP growth at a period where the country had 13% over the last seven, eight years. That's right, and if we had had an 8% GDP growth, we wouldn't have this deficit, right?
Governor Wes Moore:There would be.
Governor Wes Moore:If we were just growing more. Don't even give me the national average. Right, give me just shy of the national average. You know what we wouldn't have? A structural deficit, right? The reason we have a structural deficit. People can point a lot of fingers. It's like what happened with this? What happened with that? I said, one thing you cannot just wish away or wash away is the fact that our economy is stagnant.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Now, I'll be honest with you. When people in public office tell me that they're going to fix the budget problems with economic growth, I look back in history and I think, oh boy, here we go again with trickle-down economics right. We're going to cut taxes. We're going to on the wealthiest people so that they'll invest and somehow some of that money will eventually trickle down, and it's failed and failed and failed.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You have the slogan, of course, during your campaign leave no one behind. And I remember the first time I heard you say that you were at an event at Harry Brown's. This was very early.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Nobody had endorsed you, including me at that point, that's right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And I don't think anybody even paid to get in.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:It was sort of like let's meet this guy.
Governor Wes Moore:We're just like a meet and greet. Come on in.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:But I know there were a bunch of lobbyists and people who have been around Maryland politics for decades and decades and they aren't the kind of people that impress easily. And when you said, "leave no one behind" and you said that that's what you learned in the Army, the room just like I could feel my hair standing up and suddenly I realized, oh, this guy's going to win. This is so good that he can inspire those folks with that message and then. So then when you said, grow the economy, but you have to leave no one behind, part To me. That's exactly what our businesses need. Everything is about workforce, it is about people.
Governor Wes Moore:That's exactly right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So, how do we grow?
Governor Wes Moore:Yeah, I mean we grow by making sure we're actually investing in industries that we know we have a unique opportunity to lead in. I mean, I think about industries like life sciences and IT, and that includes things like AI and cyber and quantum. I think about industries like aerospace and defense. These are growing industries.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:That's all good for Anne Arundel County, by the way.
Governor Wes Moore:All good.
Governor Wes Moore:That's exactly right, and you know who it's also making sure that we're supporting. It's making sure that we're supporting the folks who are getting on the market at Odenton and working a lot of these federal jobs, which I want to talk about, federal jobs in a second as well.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:It's funny you mention Odenton, because that's one of our big projects we're doing together.
Governor Wes Moore:That's exactly right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:It's the parking garage and I remember going out there with you. My favorite photograph of you and me together, as we were waving to folks that were up on the train station and we were talking about how we were going to do this parking garage.
Governor Wes Moore:That's right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And it was going to allow transit-oriented development and more people using the train.
Governor Wes Moore:But that was your vision. That was your vision.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:A lot of people's, but yeah.
Governor Wes Moore:But, it was important because it's the right idea, it's the right vision and it's something that needed to make sure that we had collective support on. So, you got to make sure you're investing in growth industries, right? You also have to make sure you are reforming this tax code, because the tax code that we have right now in the state of Maryland. I'm telling you, whether you're in St. Mary's City or Ocean City or Odenton or, you know, Wicomico. No one thinks this makes sense and no one thinks this is fair, right? No one thinks it's fair that someone who makes 30 million dollars is in the same tax bracket as a family making 300, 000.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Exactly.
Governor Wes Moore:It's not fair.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah.
Governor Wes Moore:Right, no one thinks it's fair that we have a, that we have a tax code that has that Maryland is the only state in the country with both an inheritance and an estate tax. Right, it doesn't make sense, it's not fair. Yeah, right.
Governor Wes Moore:So the only thing we were saying was we have to be able to do the basic things that make the most sense for working class and middle class families. So, doubling the standard deduction because the majority of Marylanders that's how they are filing their taxes. Eliminating the standard deduction penalty because people should not have a penalty when they choose to file in something in a way that's going to put more money back into their pockets. That is going to essentially mean not just a tax cut for two-thirds of all Marylanders, it means no change in taxes for 82 percent. Either no change or a tax cut
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And those two-thirds are the bottom 66 percent, right.
Governor Wes Moore:That's exactly right.
Governor Wes Moore:It's middle-class families who are about to get a tax cut.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, most of us.
Governor Wes Moore:Yeah, which is most of us, right. And so, and I, and I tell people, you know, and that's why that's my priority. Yeah, and so when people say, "well, you know, but it does mean that you know, the people making a million dollars a year now are going to pay a quarter point, yeah, more than other people. I say I understand that and I also know this. Is A, we have to make sure we are fighting for middle class families and the growth of middle class families in our state." And the second thing I'll say is this is you know, as someone who is going to be affected by this, I am actually okay and I know I've spoken with a lot of folks in this who also are okay that we will pay a little bit more if it means we can have the best public schools in America.
Governor Wes Moore:It means we can fix our roads.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:If you were in that top tax bracket from 1936 to 1981, you would have been paying over 70%. Now you're paying 37%. So that's a huge, huge cut for the top earners in America. And now we're talking about half a percent or a quarter percent or whatever it is increase. It's pretty fair in my view.
Governor Wes Moore:Especially for what you're getting and for what you're going to invest in and for the kind of economic growth that that's going to help spurn. And I think about things like when you know, I think about people who we talk about cap gains, right. People investing in the markets. The markets have grown over 50% over the past two years. They're doing very well and all projections by all the analysts are that it's going to continue to grow over the next years.
Governor Wes Moore:So we have.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Of course, people who make their living that way are paying an even lower rate, are paying even lower rates. And then you get Elon Musk, whose Tesla pays zero.
Governor Wes Moore:So, there you go. That's the frustration that people have. So when we're talking about doing real tax reform, it's making sure we're doing something that the vast majority of Marylanders see, will feel put more money in their pockets. Because they're looking at the current tax system and say, please make this make sense.
Governor Wes Moore:Please make it make sense that someone who is literally making all their finances on the investment markets, which are on fire right now, and doing really well, that they're paying lower taxes than I am.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I don't know that there's ever been a governor who was so concerned about local jurisdictions and who communicated as closely. But when we got briefed by your staff the night before your budget came out, they gave us the exact numbers for what they were going to push on to the counties, which is $157 million. We're about a tenth of that $15.7 million and our $2 billion budget isn't a huge hit. But then they also showed how the tax reform proposal, if it goes through, will actually make that a wash because of some extra revenues that we might get.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:But I wanted to point out something really cool in your proposal too, which is that you also are dropping the corporate tax rate. And so, I was challenged by some folks on the panel saying that, oh, but if you raise the top earners rate a little bit. A lot of those are small business people and they've filed as sole proprietorships and they're paying their taxes based on their companies or their businesses' revenue. And I said, "I used to be like that, right with my business and then we just did an S-corp filing so we became a corporation, so you didn't pay the corporate income tax." So I know that there are people who are going to get a corporate tax cut and an income tax cut because they aren't making that much in their business and so they're getting the lower income tax rate and they're getting a corporate tax cut.
Governor Wes Moore:Which, by the way, is going to be the majority of Maryland small businesses. Right, the majority of Maryland small businesses are actually going to fall into this category, where you are exactly right. They are about to both get a corporate tax cut and they're going to get an income tax cut. We highlighted one person at the State of the State, Liliana, who has a printing company, Lily's Printing, that is now expanding.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Gosh, you have a good memory.
Governor Wes Moore:But it's now expanding in two different jurisdictions in the state of Maryland. And I'm, like Lily is a person who, when Hurricane Ida hit Lily, had to go into a church basement to keep her business going. Her business, her and her husband started, and now they are back. They're growing, they're thriving, but they are all, just like every single person in the state and this country, are feeling this pinch. And so, with this proposed new tax plan, Lilly is about to get a corporate tax cut for Lilly's Printing. But, to your point, because she's not making millions and millions of dollars like most small businesses in our state, she's also going to get an income tax cut. So she is going to get a tax cut on both fronts, and so Lilly represents the majority of small businesses in the state of Maryland. So I think this is actually really good for them.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So you're going to get beat up. You're already being beat up, of course, because you're, of course, doing this big tax increase right, which is we've just talked about is not the case. And then some people say, "Oh well, the millionaires are all going to leave, like they did when O'Malley, for a short period, had a millionaire tax and I asked somebody to look up the research on that, because somebody told me that there was a study that showed that Maryland had lost a bunch of millionaires. So we went back and Googled all that and got some. You know what happened.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:The millionaires didn't leave Maryland. It was during the Great Recession.
Governor Wes Moore:They weren't millionaires anymore.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:They just dropped down to the next tax bracket for a little while before they came back again.
Governor Wes Moore:That's right.
Governor Wes Moore:And I tell you and again.
Governor Wes Moore:That goes back to why I really like data and numbers because they can't be spun and they don't have opinions. Just look at the data of what actually happens, because you're absolutely right. This idea that millionaires will just flee and take off and go someplace else. There's no data that actually reinforces that. It's terribly expensive for them to be able to move and relocate, and not to mention the fact that for many of them, the reason they're in Maryland is because they like the quality of life. The reason they're in Maryland is because their families are here. The reason they're in Maryland is.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:We've got great schools.
Governor Wes Moore:We have great schools. The reason they're in Maryland is they're leveraging the ecosystem.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:We have the Chesapeake Bay.
Governor Wes Moore:We have a Chesapeake Bay. For many of them who are in certain industries, you have some of the largest institutions and anchor institutions in the state. They're not going to leave if you increase a BIP on an income tax.
Governor Wes Moore:It's not a real thing. But it's a fascinating talking point, but to your point, one is not reinforced by data.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. On the other side, of course, you have the cuts in your budget. $2 billion worth of cuts and I've noticed that some of the things that you've been criticized for cutting, you're not actually cutting. They've been growing exponentially and you're saying, look, we're going to have to have a pause on some of that growth until we get our finances together, or we're going to. And you know one is community schools. So in Anne Arundel County we're up to, I think, 12 or 13 community schools. Because each year we add based on. We start with the highest poverty levels and we work our way up and they've been wildly successful. And it's a new program and you have not cut any money for community schools. We're simply not going to add a couple more next year, and I'm okay with that because I understand that when you do budgets, you know you can't have everything you want. And I know that there's some other things like that, too. So, some of what is being called a cut is actually a pause in growth.
Governor Wes Moore:Correct. That's exactly right. And if you look at. Take community schools as one example, we have increased investment in community schools by 221%. So anyone who thinks that we're not committed to community schools, again just look at the data. There is no question about our commitment to community schools. There's no question about our commitment to public education. But you're absolutely right. What we're saying is that the trajectory of the growth that has been laid out is A it's not sustainable and we're not seeing the same type of. We've got to be able to bolster other jurisdictions, because we've watched tremendous success in community schools in Anne Arundel County, in Baltimore City. Good growth in Baltimore County, but not everywhere in the state is able to see that or to be able to take on the new resources to build them as quickly. So we have to make sure we are doing this smartly and sustainably. But you're absolutely right. I mean, you know we had to be, and we try to be very disciplined with this budget and to say it either needs to be if it's effective and sustainable. We're going to continue funding it if it was either.
Governor Wes Moore:If it was not, either effective or sustainable or, in some cases, either then there had to be adjustments and there were certain things that frankly, fell into the either. There were certain things that we were funding. I'm like, why are we funding that? And you look at it, it's not effective, it's not sustainable. So it's cut, yeah, it's gone. And there were certain things I'm like this is effective, but the growth trajectory we had it's just not sustainable, guys. And so it's not a no, but it's more of a not now. Right, or it's a let's make sure we're doing this wisely and we're doing it right. And so that's where I think, and a lot of this stuff it's not easy. Governance is really, really hard.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Everything you cut has got a group of people who are going to go wild.
Governor Wes Moore:That's right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:It's going to be like that and it's going to be a good session. Interesting session. I feel like you have spent the last two years building goodwill, showing grace to local jurisdictions, to members of the General Assembly, and so now you can do this hard thing. I'm glad you didn't have to do it the first year when you didn't have the goodwill built up.
Governor Wes Moore:No, I think that's right and I think that one thing we tried to show is that when we say partnership, it's not a throwaway line.
Governor Wes Moore:We really believe in this. We really believe in working with people across the aisle. We really believe with working with our local jurisdictions, because. Because the ones our local leaders are the ones who are closest to the opportunities, closest to the challenges, closest to the best ideas, closest to the people. And so, and I think I can very similar to you where, you know, we don't come from this political world where everything is so hyper-partisan. Where it's like, you know, everything is just, you know, ah, the Democrats this or ah, the Republicans that. Like we don't come from that, yeah. And so one of the things I really admire about your leadership is so you're like and I'm not trying to learn that either, right. You know, I'm not trying to do a crash course or the crib notes on how to fight with another political party. So, it's like how can we actually find ways of working together and hearing every idea and hearing every opinion, to be able to make decisions in the best interest of the folks we serve?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And, ultimately, it's the voters who are going to solve this and so communicating with the voters, so they understand what this budget is all about. And they go to their people and say what are you complaining about? Stop it.
Governor Wes Moore:No, that's right. That's exactly right.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So, I want to bring in a growth strategy that you have that is maybe unconventional but that I love. And that you and I are going to go see today in Brooklyn Park, the highest levels of poverty in our county in North County. We're going to be there. We have groups that are actually going also to Glen Burnie Town Center, to Crownsville and our new nonprofit center in Crownsville Memorial Park and also to the Severn Center and look at some violence interruption work there. You and I are going to be in Brooklyn Park at the Chesapeake Arts Center starting out. Yeah, so we had a launch program in Brooklyn Park for the Enough Act, the program that we got selected by the state, and we got selected because it's an area where we had enough on-the-ground organizations and engagement to be able to do a whole community strategy to end childhood poverty, to end poverty and to move people into the workforce, which is a growth strategy.
Governor Wes Moore:It is a growth strategy.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:And so we are really, really into this. Tell us why you created it.
Governor Wes Moore:You know it's enough. And it actually stands for "engaging neighborhoods, organizations, unions, governments and households, so basically everybody. And it really started because this idea of poverty is terribly expensive. We spend a lot of money every single year as a state, as a country, to be able to combat poverty. When you realize that what happens oftentimes in poverty is is is we have policies that are putting people and keeping people in poverty. So it's become almost this larger industry that now exists within this country, and the best ideas are never going to come from the government, they're going to come from the people. And so it's like how can we let the ideas come from the people, the government provide the supports, and not the other way around, where it's oftentimes the government comes to the idea and the people are the ones providing the supports for it, and so Enough is now. Maryland is now the first state in the country that actually has a state-led, place-based investment strategy on eradicating child poverty. And so we're now.
Governor Wes Moore:So the communities come up with their plans. We work with the communities, develop their plans, but some of the prerequisites are that they have to work with other entities within the community. So who are your faith-based organizations? Who are your schools and your community groups, who are? You know who's your local governmental partner? Let's show us the ecosystem and then show us the plan, because we know that addressing child poverty in Hagerstown is gonna look different than addressing child poverty in in Upper Marlboro, yeah. Or what's happening in Brooklyn Park yeah, is to look different than what's happening over in Allegheny. And so, by really letting the solutions come from the people, tell us what the issues are in your area. Tell us what you think the solution sets are. Tell us who you're going to work with in order to create that, and then we'll come in and say that's great. Now, we're going to make sure you get the resources to be able to uplift your own community. So we're very, very excited about this.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, and fortunately, we have great organizations on the ground in this county who understand it, and so I look forward to taking you around and looking at that here as we go. So I want to do one more thing. I know we're running out of time.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:One more thing that just sort of amazes me about you that you are able to meet people where they are. I used to train horses for a living and I used to have a blog called you know, "Listen to the Horse. It's like they're not going to trust you if you don't connect, and I've felt like in politics and governing it's absolutely the same, but there's nobody better at it than you, and a couple of examples are. So I'm a member of the maryland association of counties and you know the board we sit around and I think they're probably more republican, small counties than there are big democratic counties, and so we're a very bipartisan organization and, uh, I can't speak for those folks, but I'll tell you that they really like you, and what they all say is he shows up more than any governor ever has and he listens, he really listens.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Um, and then I was with you last night at the ag dinner with 900 farmers. And I remember in the past, uh, previous governors coming there, who, who, uh, weren't. Well, I mean, I just. Clearly, there are more Republican farmers than Democratic farmers, for sure, um, and but you have a way of connecting and, and you've been out to a lot of their farms already.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:So so, um, tell me how you do that, because you're way better at it than I am.
Governor Wes Moore:You're very good at it, but you know, I think people can smell sincerity and I think people can suss out when a person is being disingenuous. I'm really blessed that we have an amazing state of people who just care deeply about their communities and they care deeply about their families and they just want their children to do better than they did. They want to make sure they have really good schools to send their kids to. They want to make sure that they're not getting slighted or cheated. They want to make sure that honesty and integrity is actually rewarded. They want kind of the same things, no matter where you call home. And I think what they also want from their people, who are there to represent them, that they feel like those people see them.
Governor Wes Moore:And at the end of the day, when the doors are closed, who is that elected official thinking about? When they're making that final decision on this budget deal or they're making a final decision on capital allocation. Who's in their mind?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yep.
Governor Wes Moore:And I think for most Marylanders, they just want to think that. I just want to make sure that I'm not being forgotten when they're making these decisions, and I think the best way and the only way to do it is to be present.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yep.
Governor Wes Moore:Is to show up, is to hear people's concerns. Because the thing that I know is whether I'm talking to someone in Baltimore or whether I'm talking to someone in St. Mary's.
Governor Wes Moore:We're not going to agree on everything, and that's fine, because my perspectives are also both influenced by data and influenced by personal human experience. That person is being influenced by their data and their personal human experience. We're not going to agree on everything, but I at least want to know, and I want them to know, that even if we disagree on Tuesday, I'm looking forward to seeing you on Wednesday and finding something new to work on. And I think people see and hopefully they see that we're serious on that and our team is serious on that. And so we know, especially in times of difficulty and challenge, there's a lot of complication that people are trying to navigate in not just society, but in their own lives. I just want people to know that in us and in our team and in our partners, that they've got a friend and someone who's going to work with them to navigate through it.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:You know what's cool about that? So many people who've been in politics for so long think, oh, bipartisanship, that's what I need. That's the message I need to give. Party schmarty.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Come on, nobody cares about party.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:They don't care about bipartisanship, or Democrat or Republican. They care about basic human values, and so you've cut through all that.
Governor Wes Moore:Yeah, I mean, I think about it. You know, you weren't you, you weren't the selection of the Democratic Party.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:No, I was the only one willing to run, though.
Governor Wes Moore:But yeah, but I think about myself. Like I wasn't the person who the Democratic Party called up and said "what do you think about running for governor?
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Yeah, like they had plenty of choices, oh yeah, of other people. If that was the case, I knew.
Governor Wes Moore:I was never going to. I wasn't the party's choice, so the only way that you or I could win is not by being the party's choice, by being the people's choice. And so I think that's the thing that we've got to focus on.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Hey, they're telling us we should stop.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:I know you have a cabinet meeting to get to and we could do this all day long, but, hey, I just want to tell you how much I appreciate the fact that you are leading this state in this moment. We've got challenges coming from Washington. We've got challenges in our own budget. We've got a lot of challenges and, man, thank God it's you, because I'm really optimistic because of you and your team. Amazing group of people that you pulled together.
Governor Wes Moore:Thank God it's us.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Us, yep.
Governor Wes Moore:Thank God it's us.
County Executive Steuart Pittman:Al right. Well, thank you everybody for joining us, and if you see a subscribe button on the app you're on, just punch it and you will get an email about who our next guest is. But I think it's going to be hard to beat this one. Thanks, Gov.
Governor Wes Moore:Thanks, CE.
