Posted on 05/04/2015 5:20:00 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Baltimore Received $1.8 Billion from Obama’s Stimulus Law City burned despite ‘massive investment’ implemented by president
BY: Elizabeth Harrington May 4, 2015 5:00 am
The city of Baltimore received over $1.8 billion from President Barack Obama’s stimulus law, including $467.1 million to invest in education and $26.5 million for crime prevention.
President Obama claimed last Tuesday that if the Republican-controlled Congress would implement his policies to make “massive investments in urban communities,” they could “make a difference right now” in the city, currently in upheaval following the death of Freddie Gray.
However, a Washington Free Beacon analysis found that the Obama administration and Democratically-controlled Congress did make a “massive” investment into Baltimore, appropriating $1,831,768,487 though the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), commonly known as the stimulus.
According to Recovery.gov, one of Baltimore’s central ZIP codes, 21201, received the most stimulus funding in the city, a total of $837,955,866. The amount included funding for 276 awards, and the website reports that the spending had created 290 jobs in the fourth quarter in 2013.
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
I grew up in Detroit until 1965, then, in 1967 it burned. Has never been the same since...they can create business marvels such as the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit (or as the locals call it, “RenThonThenner”...but crime, crime keeps business away, forever. It does not help that the NFL lions have not won a championship since 1957 either...
Good article on why no business will want to build in Baltimore.
My Baltimore Business Problem
What it’s like to operate a company 150 yards from the burned out liquor store—and why it’s hard to create jobs.
By Jay Steinmetz
May 3, 2015
Baltimore
The supply-chain management company I started in the late 1990s and lead today is in downtown Baltimore. On the night of the worst violence last month, there were more tempting targets than our cement, nondescript building, like the liquor store 150 yards away that was looted. Yet on any given day what takes place in this neighborhood is a slow-motion version of recent events. Graffiti, which anyone with experience in urban policing will affirm is the first sign of trouble, regularly appears on the exterior of our building. From there the range of crimes escalates to burglarizing cars in the parking lot, and breaking and entering our building.
City policies and procedures fail to help employers address these problems—and make them worse. When the building alarm goes off, the police charge us a fee. If the graffiti isn’t removed in a certain amount of time, we are fined. This penalize-first approach is of a piece with Baltimore’s legendary tax and regulatory burden. The real cost of these ill-conceived policies is to the community where we—and other local businesses in similar positions—might be able to hire more of those Baltimoreans who have lost hope of escaping poverty and government dependency.
Maryland still lags most states in its appeal to companies, according to well-documented business-climate comparisons put out by think tanks, financial-services firms, site-selection consultants and financial media. Baltimore fares even worse than other Maryland jurisdictions, having the highest individual income and property taxes at 3.2% and $2.25 for every $100 of assessed property value, respectively. New businesses organized as partnerships or limited-liability corporations are subject, unusually, to the local individual income tax, reducing startup activity.
The bottom line is that our modest 14,000-square-foot building is hit with $50,000 in annual property taxes. And when we refinanced our building loan in 2006, Maryland and Baltimore real-estate taxes drove up the cost of this routine financial transaction by $36,000.
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.
Read at:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/my-baltimore-business-problem-1430688970
All the money in the world is not going to ameliorate lack of morals and lack of family structure.
The real question is how much of that [and ALL] ‘stimulus’ money ended up in the bank accounts of the politicians and their cronies. I would hazard a guess that the amount of money actually going to help the people it was supposedly earmarked for is a Clintionian percentage of less than 10 percent.
May 3, 2015
Dear Baltimore Family and Friends: Y’all Bein’ Played!
By Lloyd Marcus
Dear Family and Friends,
Though you have not confronted me or organized an intervention, I know many of you do not understand why I dislike Obama, vote Republican, and joined the Tea Party. Y’all think, Obama is black, we’re black — so, what is my problem?
Dad told me that grandmother, 101 years old when she passed, cried when Obama was elected. I get that and totally understand. Still, I could not go brain-dead and hop on the elect-the-first-black-president bandwagon. As a matter of fact, I was stunned by how alone I was in considering who Obama was as a candidate and what he planned to do if elected.
Democrats and the media sold Obama as America’s Great Black Hope. They protected him by hiding Obama’s anti-American friends and writings.
I learned that Obama is another standard “liberal” Democrat con artist, only more extreme; sure to continue the Democrats screwing of black folks.
For those unfamiliar with political terms, in a nutshell, “liberals” are those who believe that man can perfect himself and is capable of controlling everything. Ninety-nine percent of the time, liberals reject God’s laws and question His existence. “Conservatives” tend to be God fearing (reverencing) folks. I’m a conservative Republican.
Liberal Democrats have played blacks for over 50 years. Obama is simply their latest front man, brilliantly covered in a black skin disguise.
Now, before you go off on me, calling me an Uncle Tom and worse, please hear me out.
The recent Baltimore riots perfectly illustrate my point. Rioters expressed anger over high black unemployment, poor schools, and poverty. Well, guess who has controlled Maryland politics for the past 50 years? Liberal Democrats. And yet, they still keep playin’ blacks with their standard lie — vote for us and we’ll fix everything with our programs and block racist Republicans from keepin’ y’all down and lynching you.
Meanwhile, there hasn’t been one Republican in sight in Maryland for 50 years in a position to affect anything. (GOP governor Larry Hogan has been in office for a grand total of four months.) And yet, all the problems liberal Democrats promised to fix have gotten worse. Y’all been played. Also, how long will y’all fall for their lie that the lack of jobs is Bush’s fault? Obama has been president for six years. Y’all bein’ played!
Bush’s fault.....
Obama On Baltimore: Republican Congress Won’t Invest in Urban Communities
AP/Jacquelyn Martin
by Charlie Spiering 28 Apr 2015
During his press conference today, President Obama addressed the violence in Baltimore, claiming his political agenda would help solve some of the problems found in impoverished urban communities, such as the one where the violence occurred.
“There’s a bunch of my agenda that would make difference right now in that,” he said, calling for more funding for early education, criminal justice reform and job training.
Obama criticized members of Congress for blocking his agenda items, but encouraged Americans to do some “soul searching” during his joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this afternoon.
“I’m under no illusion that under this Congress we’re going to get massive investments in urban communities,” he said, adding that it was important to work to improve communities anyway.
He explained Americans should not “just pay attention to these communities when a CVS burns,” but rather work together to tackle poverty around the nation.
“[W]hat I’ve tried to do is promote those ideas that would make a difference, but I think we all understand that politics is tough because it’s easy to ignore those problems or to treat them as a law and order issue as opposed to a broader social issue,” he said.
Obama also suggested that the media was once again overplaying the violent protests while ignoring the peaceful ones done by community organizers in the Baltimore community.
Poor Barrack Obama. Being raised a foreigner, he never saw the commercials where old-time store keeper John Arbuckle would say, “You get what you pay for.”
If you give Baltimore money because they behave badly and riot, what do you get? More bad behavior and riots.
Want to know what might work? Tell Baltimore that all federal funds dry up next year if the schools don’t improve and the crime rate does not drop. Then, don’t listen to excuses, just cut their money off. A lot of big cities might improve overnight with just that one example.
If we don’t stop rewarding bad behavior, well, we are going to get what we pay for.
You “invest” (meaning pouring money down a rat hole) on the street rats and what do you get? More street rats!
I wonder how much of the $1.8 billion actually got to where it was intended and not directed into someone’s personal pocket? If the truth be known, I would expect a lot!
went into sumbuddy’s pockets
$2.8 Million per job.
Atta boy...
/s
Seems obvious to the casual observer that after almost 50 years of “the party of the little guy” being in charged, some of the problems would have been fixed, given the massive amounts of money the city has received. Under Democrat rule is when the rich get rich and the poor become poorer because the rich black Democrats are misappropriating all the money.
Hmm, curious as to why the WaPo or NYT haven’t reported this, instead leaving it up to the “right wing” media?
The problem IMO is that every time these places have riots the politicians react by shelling out more money, and they actually experience an increase in public investment.
Thus we have created a perverse incentive for people to riot.
I would propose that we pass a law cutting off welfare, SNAP, or any other public benefits in any zip code where civil unrest has occurred. Start Pavlov training the puppy in a more positive direction.
Money down a rat hole...
The place is run by democrats... guessing MUCH less than the percent.
You’re right. I should have known better. Heh...
why hasnt GERALDO mentioned this??
LOL - yeah it's a total mystery.../s
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