“When what you’re doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new,” said President Obama recently. At the time, Mr. Obama was speaking about our policy with Cuba, but perhaps he should be applying it to Baltimore—the poster child for big government liberalism.
As the Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner writes in NRO, “Big government has failed Baltimore. If we learn nothing from what just happened — if we simply go back to throwing money at the same tired old programs — it will be just a matter of time until this happens all over again.”
Mr. Tanner cites examples on the failures put in place by decades of big-government liberalism, both in the city of Baltimore and in the state of Maryland.
Maryland has one of the most generous welfare systems in the country. A mother of two participating in the state’s seven welfare programs can receive $35,000. Yet nearly one-quarter of Baltimore’s residents live in poverty, up from 10% in 1960.
Two-thirds of the births in Baltimore are to unmarried mothers and nearly 60% of households are headed by single parents.
Baltimore’s unemployment rate was 8.4% in February. The national average is 5.5%. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, only seven states and the District of Columbia have a worse business climate than does Maryland. The city’s small businesses face the seventh-largest marginal tax rate in the nation.
Baltimore property tax rate is more than twice the rate of most of the rest of the state. Nationally, it has the ninth worst tax burden out of 50 major American cities.
More than a quarter of Baltimore students fail to graduate from high school. Yet Baltimore ranks #4 among major cities in per-pupil expenditures, spending about 52% above the national average.
Baltimore has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation, yet is the fifth most deadly city in America.
Read more from Michael Tanner here.
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Debbie Young
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