We have a way to evaluate the economic records of governors like O’Malley who want to be president. As my colleague Ben Casselman has written:
Governors love to brag about how they balanced their states’ budgets. They’re counting on voters not realizing that, unlike the federal government, virtually all states are required — either by law or by their constitutions — to have balanced budgets. When Bush boasts that he balanced Florida’s budget “eight years in a row,” that really just means he spent eight years in office.