From Elizabeth Harrington\’s piece for the Washington Free Beacon:
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.
Of this amount, $467.1 million went to education; $206.1 million to the environment; $24 million to “family”; $16.1 million to infrastructure; $15.2 million to transportation; $11.9 million to housing; and $3.1 million to job training.
ZIP code 21202 received $425,170,937, including a $136 million grant to “improve teaching and learning for students most at risk of failing to meet State academic achievement standards.”
Twenty-nine other ZIP codes listed in Baltimore city received a total of $568,641,684.
Maybe it would be a good idea for the dishonest, pandering media people who are claiming that Baltimore\’s problems are due to congress – read that the Republican Party – withholding the money needed to make things better, to:
-read the facts Ms. Harrington and Free Beacon have pulled – from exactly the same government sources they have equal access to and could have found every bit as easily. Then,
-start asking the Mayor of Baltimore, the City Council, and congresspeople who serve that area (Elijah Cummings immediately comes to mind) what the HELL happened to the money Baltimore was given?
You want honest answers about Baltimore? How\’s that for a start?
I\’ll even help by posting a more specific question – the first one that hit me as I read those data: how could $837,955,866 in so-called “stimulus” money result in a grand total of 290 jobs? That comes to $2,889,503 per job. It is impossible for that much money, used anywhere near honestly, to have yielded that many jobs. Or even 50 times that many jobs.
Asking again: what the HELL happened to the money Baltimore was given? Where did it go? To whom? And why would anyone be crazy enough to pump more money into the same bottomless pit without answers to those questions?
