By Adam Pagnucco.
The primary election is over. And since the winners of the Democratic primary have gone on to win all of MoCo’s state and county offices over the last twenty years, it’s likely that we know the vast majority of our next generation of leaders.
Now we turn to the challenge ahead.
Let’s start with a quick stat. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, MoCo’s total payroll employment was 464,876 in 2006. After some ups and downs during the Great Recession and the pandemic, MoCo’s job count settled at 456,246 in 2025 – a loss of 8,630 jobs (down 2%). Meanwhile, the rest of the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro area added 319,567 jobs over the same period, a growth rate of 13%. We have been falling behind our neighbors for two decades.
Job stagnation has been accompanied by net outmigration of taxpayer income. Back in 2023, I examined IRS taxpayer data and found that MoCo has seen escalating levels of taxpayer income net flight, draining the county’s income tax base. There are still folks moving in, but here’s the thing – the people moving in make less than the people moving out. I found the same phenomenon at the state level a year ago and the net flight is concentrated among the wealthy. This long-term interaction between employment stagnation and tax flight is a toxic stew that has been brewing for a looooong time.
It does not brew in isolation. Over time, the county’s economic problems have infected its budgets. Believe it or not, tax increases were once uncommon in MoCo. In the 13 years between FY11 and FY24, the county did not raise its energy tax or its income tax (which was then at the state maximum) and the county council broke the charter limit to raise property taxes only once (in FY17). Now county leaders discuss tax increases almost every year, raising three different taxes in FY24 and repealing the $692 Income Tax Offset Credit received by three-quarters of the county’s homeowners this year. As if that is not enough, county leaders resorted to (allegedly) one-time maneuvers like diverting retiree healthcare money and grabbing cash from the capital budget to subsidize ongoing operating expenditures. The result is this year’s infamous Kicking the Can budget, which imposed a large tax increase on most homeowners while creating a nearly $300 million structural deficit for next year at the same time.
And what are we getting for this fiscal irresponsibility? MCPS, despite getting a $144 million increase on top of hundreds of millions of dollars more in recent years, has reacted to receiving 98.4% of its operating budget request (its historical average) by slashing more than 400 positions. A multibillion dollar infrastructure backlog has been mushrooming for many years with no plan to fix it. State budget problems in Annapolis will inevitably spill over onto the counties with renewed shift and shaft measures such as the teacher pension shift of yesteryear. County leaders can’t keep making the gold-plated promises of 20 years ago with the empty beggar’s cup of today’s economy. When will they finally realize it?
Looming over all of this is a potential charter amendment that would require a unanimous vote of council members to adopt an operating budget with growth exceeding the rate of inflation. Such a measure is a Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of spendthrift county leaders. And yet, if the charter amendment gets enough signatures to head to the ballot, tax-shocked homeowners could very well approve it as an act of self-defense.
MoCo can still succeed. Our population is educated, ambitious and diverse. Our businesses can compete with anyone if they are allowed to do so. Our public schools are anchored by a talented workforce and continue to graduate some of the best and brightest students in the world. Our jurisdiction is also blessed with modest crime levels, beautiful neighborhoods, superior amenities and a relative lack of political corruption.
But time is running out for us. We must have leadership that taps our strengths, practices discipline, sticks to a doable list of priorities (like education and transportation) and above all focuses on economic competitiveness. There is no law of economics that holds that a prosperous jurisdiction will forever remain so. Tough choices await. But postponing tough choices creates an ever rising level of difficulty. It’s time to stop kicking the cans and build a Great Revival.
That is the challenge ahead. Will we meet it? Or will our decline become irreversible?