When Liberals Run Cities

Townhall.com ^ | May 9, 2015 | John C. Goodman

[Kaslin]

Did Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, cause the breakdown of civil order in Baltimore? How about JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter novels and the world’s richest woman? Is she the cause of all the mayhem?

Last time I looked, Gates was producing products that bring joy to the life of kids who live everywhere. And he is giving away almost all his wealth to help the poorest people in the world. And Rowling? All she does is write books that youngsters like to read and help make movies people of all ages flock to see. What I know about the riots in Baltimore is mainly what I have seen on my TV screen. But I don’t recall any signs that read “Down with Gates” or “We Hate Rowling.”

That doesn’t stop New York Times writer Paul Krugman, who is up to the task of turning almost any tragedy into an opportunity to peddle snake oil. When he is not covering up his abysmal record economic prediction, Krugman’s columns tend to have three themes: (1) people are poor because they can’t find jobs, (2) nonetheless we should do everything we can to close off job opportunities, by encouraging labor union monopolies, raising the minimum wage and voting against any political candidate who has the courage to oppose the teacher unions and try to improve the schools and (3) then blame the tragedy that unfolds on the “top tenth of the top 1 percent.”

Let’s get rid of one left wing myth right away. Krugman and other liberal commentators are asserting that Baltimore’s poor minority community is suffering from “neglect.” True? Hardly.

Among the top 100 school districts in the country, Baltimore spending per student ranks number two – trailing only New York. According to George Mason University economist Alex Tabarrok, Baltimore spends $17,196 per student – an amount that would pay the tuition at some of the nation’s most exclusive private schools. Further, according to Terence Jeffrey, the Baltimore school system has about 10,165 teachers and other staff on the payroll in the 2012-2013 school year — or about 1 for every 8.3 students.

Yet the school system there has all the characteristics of a classic bureaucracy. Despite an 8 to 1 student-to-adult ratio, class sizes are often 40 students per teacher. And despite a huge budget that would be the envy of most inner city schools, according the Baltimore Sun only $5,190 per student finds its way into the classroom. Perhaps that’s why we are hearing that students are using 20-year-old books.

In some neighborhoods, half the students don’t show up for class on any given day. One reason may be the deplorable conditions of the school buildings. Baltimore businessman Jay Steinmetz writes in the Wall Street Journal:

My two children attend a public elementary school where …. Bathroom stall doors and toilet-seat lids are missing. The heat goes out in the winter and the air-conditioning goes out in hot weather. It’s hard to explain the importance of developing science and math skills to students wearing winter coats in the classroom.

Maybe that is why the results are so bad. Marc A. Thiessen reports in the Washington Post:

[A]ccording to the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 55 percent of Baltimore fourth graders scored “below basic” in reading while just 14 percent scored at the proficient or advanced level. Meanwhile 54 percent of eighth graders scored “below basic” in math, while just 13 percent were proficient or advanced.

As for the role of government, Baltimore has the highest income and real estate taxes in the state of Maryland. And it hasn’t hesitated on the regulatory front either. As Steinmetz explains:

State and city regulations overlap in a number of areas, most notably employment and hiring practices, where litigious employees can game the system and easily find an attorney to represent them in court. Building-permit requirements, sales-tax collection procedures for our multistate clients, workers’ compensation and unemployment trust-fund hearings add to the expensive distractions that impede hiring.

As for inequality, that is actually becoming much less of a problem. According to the , $125 million in taxable annual income in Baltimore vanished between 2009 and 2010. As people who create jobs leave the city, those who remain are more equal than before.

More equally poor.

[Gaffer]

Look at most any urban city school system in this country. Their expenditures/student are generally much higher that surrounding areas not under the governmental thumb of that city. Adding further insult to injury, these school systems largely do far worse on most measures of achievement and learning by their students.

When the odd case arises where these comprehensive pupil achievement/learning turn out well, there is the likely potential of teacher/administrator shenanigans with the proctoring of testing or grading. (see Atlanta/Fulton County Teachers sentenced for test fraud).

Unfortunately, it's not only the school systems. This same sort of incompetence and activity is pervasive through the whole city government.

[Travis McGee]

[FreedomPoster]

Strike “to own” from that graphic and it would read better.

[ripley]

Those photos actually illustrate the mindset of psychotic, adolescent Progressives. They’re absolutely bonkers, filled with hate, and operating under delusions that are glaring yet embraced.

IMHO

[dp0622]

My future sister in law (besides being hot) is an idiotic union voter. She lives in a great Italian American neighborhood, her and her electrician husband make a bundle together, and yet she votes dem to protect those raises!!!

It wouldn't mater if they spent 399999 dollars in each kid, when mom is too busy chasing that career, at best, or smoking crack and whoring at worst, when dad left house with the young blond or never lived in the house to begin with, all the money in the world wont work.

But liberals can never accept that because it is more prevalent in certain groups and you CAN'T say that today. Mom tells me school was some books and a pencil in a cold room back in the day. She's 82. She became a nurse. Now they get three squares and pretty soon liberals will be looking for workers to wipe their a..es.

[Louis Foxwell]

The riots in Baltimore are about the dereliction of the entire government structure of the city.
The city’s politicians and bureaucrats have brought the wrath of “their people” down around their own precious necks. They are simply too benighted to see it, yet.
Another important effect of the Baltimore riots is to end any possibly sympathy or compassion from the rest of the US citizenry. Frankly, they can burn themselves down. Maybe that will create opportunity for real change.

[lowbridge]

[Travis McGee]

Yeah, that’s awkward.

[kearnyirish2]

Poverty is a major industry in this country; the urban livestock provide a lucrative income to many - who will perpetuate the misery forever to keep the gravy train rolling. There would be no Democratic Party without millions of unassimilated urban folk with outstretched palms.

[bert]

Baltimore

[Cowgirl of Justice]

There is no civility in them, no decency, only destruction.

In no way will any of them pictured there ever be able to become taxpaying citizens and contribute to making this country greater.

Instead, they wil be a drain on the criminal justice system and produce numerous like minded soawn, further deteriorating this country and our way of life.

[airborne]

Bookmark

[FreedomPoster]

Great image, great idea though. Execution just needs a slight tweak.

[Desron13]

When total control freaks run anything you just know you are headed for disaster. The ideologies of progressives /socialists / democrats and Marxists all have one thing in common. They are all control freaks that think they know what is best for every one else. They have basically two ilks. One that truly believes that they are doing the right thing and the other are total sociopaths. It's hard to say which is more destructive to society.

The most frightening thing about this mentality is that when their goofball ideas inevitably fail, these idiots think that they have simply too little control over their fellow man and need more control.

Thus is the nature of Tyranny.

[wally_bert]

I despise control freaks. In most cases where any of them gets the tiniest bit of control, things go to hell in my experience.

[mrsmel]

The government has to keep busy moving money around from the producers to the leeches so they can have it pass through their hands to get their cut. They can come up with more ways to extort money from the makers, to give to the takers, because that’s how these thieves in government-I mean “public servants”-become millionaires

[mrsmel]

It will more likely create the opportunity for the thieves in government to extort the taxpayers to rebuild what the criminals destroyed (not completely though, they have to get their cut after all). It will also create opportunities for crony capitalists to get tax breaks, write-offs, and deductions for going and rebuilding, so they can crow about their "good intentions" and assuage their white guilt. But you'll never see them moving to live there (though they will gladly and quickly call for section 8 vouchers to move the criminals into our communities).

[Gritty]

The criminals rioting in the streets as thugs and running the cities as politicians and union bosses.

There is no hope here until honest government shows up and parasites give up their criminal ways. It is obvious throwing all the money in the world isn't going to solve these problems.

Thanks, LBJ! Thanks, Great Society! Thanks, Liberals! Thanks, union thugs! Thanks, ignorance! Thanks, sin!

[Alberta's Child]

“Urban livestock” — LMAO.