Maryland has become an even worse state to do business in over the last year, according to CNBC's Top States for Business 2026 list, which the cable TV business channel unveiled today. Moribund Maryland dropped four spots to #36 this year based on CNBC's criteria, which examine each state's infrastructure, economy, workforce, quality of life, cost of doing business, and technology and innovation. Virginia, by contrast, moved up to #3, and is perennially in the top 5 on this list.
Why is Maryland once again a bottom dweller, and sinking? The primary new factors are the state's IT tax, which has not only massively increased IT costs (including my own) for Maryland businesses, but has only increased the exodus of companies from the state. Maryland's highest profile infrastructure project, the Key Bridge replacement, has stalled out. That missing highway link not only remains a logistical nightmare for businesses large and small that relied on it, but only adds to Maryland's national notoriety as a state with inadequate infrastructure, and an ideological hostility to road construction. And after Maryland Governor Wes Moore and the state legislature used Zohran Mamdani slight-of-hand tactics to raid precious funds for a desperation one-year budget fix, S&P downgraded Maryland's long-term outstanding debt outlook from stable to negative.
Continuing to plague our state are our own elected officials. For another year, Montgomery County and Maryland officials failed to take any steps toward construction of the long-delayed new Potomac River crossing, which would give us the critically-needed direct access to Dulles International Airport that corporate executives demand (and currently get in Northern Virginia). In fact, our leaders proudly stand against the new bridge, which was supposed to have been constructed 50 years ago. Multiple highways planned to handle explosive housing growth that has already taken place over decades in Montgomery County not only remain unbuilt, but have been criminally removed from the master plan, a blatant dereliction of duty by our elected officials.
Electricity costs continue to skyrocket, again the direct result of actions by our elected officials. They forced the closure of 8 power plants statewide, and implemented clean power mandates. These buffoonish diktats brought us where we are now: not only unable to provide cheap and abundant energy for business, but unable to even provide sufficient electricity capacity to meet existing demand. This has required Maryland to import electricity at inflated boardwalk prices from out of state.
Maryland has only increased the tax burden on business, when our corporate tax rate was already not competitive for business. The Montgomery County Council not only implemented multiple tax hikes this year, including yet another property tax increase, but actually created new taxes amid an affordability crisis. And despite their minimum wage increases having been an utter catastrophe, ushering in the age of restaurants using touchscreens and fewer employees, the Marxist radicals on the Council are now poised to join the national bankruptcy movement that is calling for a $30 minimum wage.
Yet another chance to change direction is quickly slipping through the fingers of MoCo and Maryland voters. Turnout in last month's primary election was humiliatingly small. The Banner, whose billionaire oligarch owner puts his news behind a paywall(!!) and is a well-known Democratic operative, actually posted a story on Facebook claiming Democratic Montgomery County Executive nominee Will Jawando "is expected to be sworn in as the next Montgomery County executive in December." In fact, The Banner wrote, Jawando "will almost certainly be sworn in as the next Montgomery County executive in December."
The November general election hasn't even taken place, folks. This is classic voter suppression by The Banner: make voters feel hopeless. Why bother to vote when The Banner has told you the outcome is already known? "Democracy," right? At The Banner, democracy dies in a $50 million grant from the billionaire Democratic operative owner to run that propaganda outlet, which was warmly welcomed in Montgomery County by the very politicians who would fear a true journalistic examination of their true crimes and corruption. Fortunately, the Montgomery County and Maryland cartels don't control CNBC, and the results truly speak for themselves.
