Budget deficit will be session's dominant issue

As hard as they've tried over the past few years to change the subject of State House conversation, Gov. Martin O'Malley and the General Assembly are unlikely to shift away from dollars and cents in the session that begins Wednesday.

Initiatives on the statewide and local levels will be heavily constrained by financial problems, and legislators are focusing more on maintaining what they have than looking for new programs.

Although the first session of Mr. O'Malley's term in 2007 was largely devoid of drastic measures to deal with the state's looming deficit, the storm clouds that gathered in those first 90...