Wes Moore

Because some of the greatest assets in the country reside and exist in the state of Maryland.

And it's insane for us not to be able to compete for those things.

I think about, for example, biotech in Massachusetts 20 years ago.

They said, you know, we're going to be the home of biotech because we're the home of

Harvard.

We're the home of MIT.

And so they said, we're going to invest in biotech.

And guess what?

They became the global head of biotech because they were intentional.

We've got to be intentional about the way we're thinking about cyber, about the way we're thinking about AI and quantum, about the way we're thinking about life sciences.

And frankly, we've seen that, right?

We've seen businesses who, for whatever reason, have chosen and chosen Maryland because they like the regional access.

You still have a negative in that migration.

Well, and I'll say this, and for me, this has nothing to do with what anyone else is doing, right?

It's about what can we do to make my state win?

And I know there's more we've got to do.

I know the kind of hole that we had to walk into.

I know we walked in with a multi-billion dollar structural deficit.

And part of the reason is because our state is very good at spending, right?

If you look at the seven years before I became the governor, spending in Maryland increased by 70%.