Maryland faces a tight budget with expected revenue growth far below what’s needed to meet cost increases in mandatory spending for programs including Medicaid.

Speaking Tuesday to a room filled with lobbyists and lawmakers at The Baltimore Banner’s second Inside the Legislative Session event, Comptroller Brooke Lierman and Sen. Guy Guzzone, chair of the Senate’s budgeting committee, painted a grim picture for Maryland’s finances.

“Since 2017 we’ve had truly anemic growth in our economy,” Lierman said at the event in Annapolis. “That leads to anemic growth in our revenues.”

Revenue growth for fiscal year 2025 is expected to be less than 2% and less than 1% for fiscal year 2026, Lierman said. In this upcoming year, Guzzone said, Medicare costs are expected to increase by 9%.

“So if you can simply do the math of those two numbers, you can know what kind of difficult situation we’re in,” Guzzone said.

In a guest column published in The Baltimore Sun Tuesday morning, Gov. Wes Moore wrote his upcoming budget proposal will not feature increases in sales or property taxes, and that many Marylanders “will get a tax cut.”

But, Moore wrote, his budget will ask “Marylanders who have done exceptionally well financially to contribute a little more,” likely meaning an income tax increase. Moore also wrote that his proposed budget will cut $2 billion in spending.

Sen. Stephen Hershey Jr., the Senate minority leader, said during the event that the Republican caucus would not support any tax increases from the legislative session this year. But without increased revenue, others said, Maryland will not be able to achieve a balanced budget.

“We can’t cut our way out of the fiscal situation we’re facing,” House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne A. Jones said during a later discussion.

Here are some other takeaways from the event.

Incoming Trump administration

Moore, speaking at the event, said he’s willing to work with whichever presidential administration is in power. His focus, Moore said, is on the more than 6 million people who live in Maryland.

“I am not the leader of the resistance, I’m the governor of Maryland,” Moore said.

Moore said his general approach to the incoming Donald Trump administration will be to protect and support Maryland and its residents. That includes being willing to “fight like hell” to make sure the new FBI headquarters comes to Prince George’s County and the Red Line gets funded and built, he said.

“I know elections have consequences,” Moore said.

Jones was much more combative when asked about Trump.

“I can’t stand that man,” Jones said. “We’ll do what is necessary to protect every Marylander from a Trump agenda that will seek to divide us as a nation.”

Is housing still a priority?

Maryland housing Secretary Jake Day hinted the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development could also see budget cuts this year, right on the heels of the agency’s $140 million bump last year.

Speaking during a panel event Tuesday morning, Day said “everyone will have to play a role” in reversing some of Maryland’s dour economic headwinds. But he also offered one possible solution to the state’s budget woes: more housing.

“We’ve got to grow. We’ve got to build,” Day told the audience. “We cannot get out of the economic crisis that Maryland faces if we ... do not enable ourselves to grow that population that does want to be here.”

Day declined to detail what specific housing policies the Moore administration would champion this session, but already, a few prefiled bills offer clues into its priorities.

One bill introduced at the request of the state housing agency would support a program called Project Restore. The program would allow the department to give funding to local governments and community developers whose activities support small businesses and historic preservation.

Another bill seeks to establish certification requirements for homeless shelters and standards for the rights of their residents. A third aims to provide loans and grants related to those who reduce greenhouse gas emissions at multifamily residences.

It’s too soon to determine if any of the department’s pet bills can pass.

Expanding prescription affordability

Maryland’s Prescription Drug Affordability Board is currently only able to enforce prescription drug price limits for drugs purchased by state and local government facilities and health plans, typically dispensed to government employees and their families.

That’s not enough for Del. Joseline A. Peña-Melnyk, chair of the House Health and Government Operations Committee.

She said a bill will be introduced this session that extends the mandate of the board to cover all Marylanders, expanding it from the “pilot” that covered state employees.

“Every day people are making choices between buying their medicine or putting food at the table, and it is really difficult,” she said. “We’re not going to wait for the federal government. We’re going to do it. And if we’re sued, we’re sued.”

Baltimore Banner reporter Hallie Miller contributed to this story.