It’s bad enough that Virginia is scamming Maryland.

As my colleague Danny Zawodny reported, Marylanders can register their cars in the Old Dominion with a wink and a nod to avoid fair fees and just fines.

Nope. That’s not the only insult.

Virginia’s quirky lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, decided to attack her likely Democratic opponent in the fall campaign for governor by trashing Maryland.

“Virginia Democrats, like Abigail Spanberger, want to turn us into Maryland 2.0 — higher taxes, criminals before victims, and radical agendas in our schools," Earle-Sears wrote on her campaign’s Facebook page.

“Not. On. My. Watch.”

We’re sitting over here on the left bank of the Potomac River trying to sort out a crippling $3 billion budget shortfall, and her hollow attempt at, I suppose, political humor landed somewhat flat.

Clearly, Earle-Sears has a Wall Street Journal subscription and was inspired by its equally insipid editorial on Gov. Wes Moore’s budget plan. They called it the “Californication” of Maryland.

Ha. Ha. Get it?

“I hadn’t paid attention to what she said,” Moore laughed when asked about it during a news conference on helping displaced federal workers.

“I know the lieutenant governor is running for governor,” the Democrat added. “I would recommend that she actually focus on Virginia and not use her 15 minutes of fame focusing on Maryland.”

Spanberger questioned why Earle-Sears was “lobbing insults while thousands of federal workers are fired without cause.” The lieutenant governor didn’t respond when I asked to talk.

Earle-Sears has a penchant for clickbait, posing for campaign photos in 2021 with an assault rifle. She’s a trailblazer, a Jamaican immigrant who wants to be Virginia’s first Black female governor.

But if you come for the Old Line State, The Free State, The Oyster State, The Land of Pleasant Living, Maryland, America in Miniature — expect payback.

Hold my Natty Boh.

Yes, Maryland is deep blue and Virginia is purple. For the record, though, the difference between the combined burden of property, income and sales taxes between here and there is three-quarters of a percentage point.

That does not include regional transportation fees paid by residents of Virginia’s most populous counties.

Yeah, it is expensive to live here. The tax and fee proposals pinballing their way through the Maryland General Assembly mean it will get more expensive.

The problem with advice from Virginia’s part-time No. 2 is that she doesn’t include any suggestions for other solutions. Why would she?

What happens in Maryland is none of Earle-Sears’ business, nor should it be.

However, that’s the Republican trick on taxes and spending — say they’re bad, and then mic drop. Cut spending. Don’t hire anybody. Boom.

Throw out meaningless buzz phrases like “criminals before victims” and “radical agendas” and hope no one looks for facts.

Not helpful.

Government spending and programs have constituencies. If you want to cut funding for people with developmental disabilities, go out to the wheelchair protest line forming outside the State House in Annapolis and tell them why.

(Looking at you, Wes).

Think it’s a good idea to slash spending on climate change? There were 120 floods at Annapolis City Dock in 2024. People support doing something about it.

Cut spending on making schools better? Take money for Chesapeake Bay restoration?

People will complain. People will vote.

Like Maryland, Virginia is made up of distinct regions. The Commonwealth Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Richmond, looked at how they will be affected by President Donald Trump’s priorities.

Earle-Sears, an early critic of Trump who now loves what he’s doing, should stop reading The Journal and check out facts close to home.

In Northern Virginia, many of the state’s 340,000 civilian federal employees are probably getting pretty ticked off about Trump and his cartoon villain sidekick, Elon Musk, bashing their service.

A Marine veteran, Earle-Sears should understand the meaning of service. She should ask her fellow vets in Hampton Roads about the Trump administration’s plans to cut 80,000 jobs at Veterans Affairs.

The Navy base in Norfolk and the Pentagon are great for the Virginia economy. The Department of Defense pumps $68.5 billion a year into it. Voters will notice $50 billion a year in planned cuts.

As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth hunts his DEI boogeyman, many of Virginia’s 121,687 voters in uniform might choose Spanberger, a former Democratic congresswoman and intelligence officer, for governor out of sheer frustration over being told how to think.

No matter where you live in Virginia, Earle-Sears’ little joke distracts from an inconvenient fact — her state ranks first in net benefits from the federal government.

As Trump chaotically axes government out of malice — not genuine desire for more efficiency — Virginia, like Maryland, will suffer.

Lieutenant governor, I could do this all day.

We have two football teams, you have none. We have the Orioles, you have the Richmond Flying Squirrels.

We have oyster roasts and crab feasts. Virginia has shad planking — fish roasted on lumber.

There was an oyster war, with oyster pirates and an oyster navy. We won.

The Potomac River is in Maryland. Get over it.

Marylanders can’t buy beer or wine in grocery stores, but Virginians are forced to get their bourbon and rum from a state monopoly.

We see alewives, those tiny herrings in the Chesapeake Bay, as crucial to an ecosystem stressed by warming waters. Virginia sees them as dog food.

Edgar Allan Poe is so Baltimore that no one remembers he was from Richmond.

And Gustav Brunn, a German-Jewish immigrant from Maryland, invented Old Bay. Virginians use it through our generosity to the world.

For the record, I know Natty Boh is made in Ohio and Georgia. “Hold my Loose Cannon” just doesn’t have the same ring, does it?

Virginia is a fine state. I went to college there. Many of my friends call it home.

Take a cheap shot at Maryland, though, and you’ll find another reason we identify so much with the blue crab.

We both snap back.