Governor and Lieutenant Governor join students and University System of Maryland Officials
October 31, 2007
It is great to be with all of you. Thank you so very, very much for coming here today, to your State capital, to your Annapolis, to this place where we are going to be making decisions about your future. I can’t tell you how much it warms my heart on this warm, sunny day, not only to see the future of Maryland gathered in this circle, but also to see the Maryland future Air Defense League giving us a fly-by in the middle of our rally. (Applause.)
Everything that we do to get our fiscal house in order and restore fiscal responsibility is really about making progress for our future. Everything we do to correct the flawed math of the past is really about making progress for our future. Progress, yes, on our environment, progress on health care, progress on economic development -- and the foundation of all economic development and opportunity is education and higher education. We cannot become a great State unless the children of the working families of Maryland can afford to go to college here in the State of Maryland. (Applause.)
Together as Democrats and as Republicans, together as Marylanders, together as Americans, we have inherited one of the strongest nations in the history of the planet. Why is that? It’s because in every single generation we understood that the investments that we make today determine whether or not our tomorrow is stronger. Every generation we understood that bridges and roads and tunnels do not become younger with age, we have to invest in maintaining them if we want to be able to pass them on to our children in a stronger condition than we inherited it ourselves.
Every single generation we have understood that by investing in better education, including more affordable higher education for the next generation, makes our State a stronger place. It is no accident that we are the wealthiest State in America. We are the wealthiest State in America because we have invested in the talents, the skills and the higher education of all of our people. (Applause.)
And that’s what we have to do in our own time. The Lieutenant Governor and I were elected to lead and we were elected on your behalf to lead. And so we have put forward a plan and a proposal to make sure not only that we keep faith with the past, but that we keep faith with you. And in this proposal, for the first time in our history, we are proposing a dedicated stream of funding for higher education and more affordable college. (Applause.)
My friends, in order for us to be successful, we have to reject a detour that we’ve gone on in recent years. And you know what it is. It’s called 40 percent increases in your tuition, your tuition, your tuition. Forty percent increases in college tuition do not make it easier for more people to be able to send their kids to college.
Now, any component of this plan, each of us can have a hundred reasons why we vote against any piece of it. But that thing that makes progress possible in any republic is a thing called consensus. That’s why we need our colleagues in the party of Lincoln, our Republican colleagues, to join with us in finding the consensus. That’s why we need every Democrat and every Republican not to ask what’s in the best interests of their party, but ask what’s in the best interests of all of you -- the students, the future of America. (Applause.)
[ Read related press release ]
