Wes Moore Fumbles the Bag

Maryland had a perfect AAA bond rating for 52 years. That it was lost on his watch cements Governor Wes Moore as a catastrophic failure

Ever since 1973, Maryland has enjoyed a strong rating from the New York bond houses. Whether or not you believe the state should borrow as much as it did, it was able to do so as cheaply as possible thanks to our strong Governor-led budgeting process and the requirement for a balanced budget.

And now, Governor Wes Moore and legislative Democrats have pissed that all away.

Maryland lost its treasured “triple triple-A” bond rating Wednesday when a key bond-rating agency downgraded its assessment of the state’s creditworthiness to Aa1.

The move by Moody’s ends more than three decades in which Maryland held the highest bond rating from the three rating agencies: Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch. Moody’s had given Maryland a AAA rating every year since 1973 — until Wednesday. Prior to Wednesday’s announcement, Maryland was one of 14 states to have the highest rating from the three major agencies — Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poors.

A triple-A rating means the state pays the lowest rates when it sells bonds to fund public projects. The downgrade means the state — and taxpayers — could pay more in interest on that borrowed money.

The change announced Wednesday could mean taxpayers will pay more in interest on the money the state borrows.

Maryland’s AAA Bond rating survived the Oil Embargo, the Old Court Savings and Loan Scandal, the Recession, 9/11, Martin O’Malley and a Global Pandemic. But it could not survive Wes Moore.

The fact that this happened on Governor Wes Moore’s watch cements him as nothing more than a catastrophic failure. He will easily go down as one of Maryland’s worse governors.

And yet, it is so much worse than that becuase of the predictability of it, seeing as Maryland was warned about a potential downgrade last year. And what wid Wes Moore and the Democrats in Annapolis do about that? They did the same damn thing they did that put Maryland in this predictament to start with; tax more and spend moore. And as much as Moore may wish to blame Donald Trump for bond rating downgrade, the blame falls squarely on Moore’s inexperience, incompetence and misfeasance.