Greg Kline from Red Maryland is going to join us tomorrow on GrokTALK! to discuss the Baltimore riots. I was doing some reading in preparation for that interview and came across an article by another contributor at Red Maryland, Brian Griffiths. In the course of questioning the city’s failure to address issues of poverty, he observes that while there was plenty of investment in Baltimore, it was all very much one-sided.
Huge economic development projects, whether you are a fan or not, were focused away from the places that actually needed the most help.
Maryland is a small state so Baltimore looms large. New Hampshire doesn’t have a Baltimore but we do have those who fancy bonds for private ventures.
Tax Increment Financing (TIFs) see the city actually float bonds for private businesses to build things and hope that the property taxes make up for the bonds later.
The “all Democrat” all-the-time Baltimore government was polishing a diamond for the rich and politically connected to attract tourism, commerce, and photo-ops (for the rich and politically connected) on the assumption that voters would see this as also doing something for the disadvantaged. Be proud of your city. Look how pretty it is. Look, we are doing something, just like we said we would. And don’t forget to vote Democrat; if you don’t some Republican might slow spending or (gads!) might try to stop our taxpayer backed monument building program.
Baltimore’s Democrat emperors were not doing it for the people they were doing it for themselves.
Here in New Hampshire the legislature is considering a taxpayer backed bailout of a resort (in the middle of nowhere). A place where one could film post apocalyptic movies without any additional set dressing. A place looted by the owners who now want to fix it back up with taxpayer help. They say it will crate a few jobs and revitalize the area. I’m all in favor of finding ways to help the North Country proposer but is that what this is about?
Is this the best use of those taxpayer resources? Will advocates be able to justify why $28 million is better spent there than on all the other woes they repeatedly claim ail us?
If they are to be believed the newly remodeled Balsams resort will be an island no one can reach thanks to our crumbling infrastructure. Our refusal to fund commuter rail through the Nashua-Manchester-Corridor (at some point) will be to blame for impending failure of an investment we never wanted in the first place. And what about the spotty cellular and internet service in the North Country? This wont fix that.
If this passes how much more loaning will there be once Democrats can populate the progressive charm bracket with any number of shiny taxpayer backed baubles?
The more of your money they are allowed to spend the more of it they will claim they need to spend. There is no enough.
After justifying a resort bailout, why not excuse bonds for renewables to power it? We could fund a fiber-optic project and cellular expansion so the resort-goers can use their iThis and iThat to stay connected to their crony friends at the best possible speed to the other taxpayer-backed parts of the world.
Where’s the nearest airport? Shouldn’t we back building or rebuilding one of those too?
Add a crony casino (which one day must pass as a moral and fiscal imperative to support the investment on the resort no one is visiting) and who knows who you might meet there one day. “My name is Bond. Taxpayer backed Bond.”
Will it be taxpayers who are shaken but not stirred?
Now, New Hampshire is not Maryland (yet), and we do not have any places like Baltimore (yet), but you have to start somewhere. And any area left too long in the husbandry of the left’s corrupting worldview will inevitably find its accounts and its people out of balance. The solution to the former is, ironically, more spending supported by higher taxes.
The class warriors will claim to be balancing the budget on the backs of the rich but that’s not really true–and not just because it is for the benefit of the politically ‘wealthy’ that the deficit exists.
The solution to the latter, to progressives, is to pour fuel on a manufactured division of wealth catalyzed by progressive policy until it ignites; and to then blame your political opponents, blame anyone and everyone but yourselves or your ideological ancestors.
Democrats don’t care how they get there (the burning of Baltimore), but they all want to get there. This is what organizing for action is all about. Movement, force, intimidation, even violence all acceptable (and excused) if it advances or has the potential to advance any part of the progressive agenda.
The destruction of people or property is just another development project to Democrats.
Watching riots is a form of social and cultural catharsis for the leftist elite. It allows them to validate themselves as class warriors from a distance; like visitors at a museum offering a critique to others of violent depictions they do not want bystanders to know they themselves painted.
And we know this to be true thanks to the honesty of Baltimore’s Democrat Mayor. Give them room to destroy. This was no misstatement, it was deliberate. Desired. Utopia can not come until after the destruction
You do not order your police to stand down and give the people room to destroy unless it serves your own purpose.
And on a related note, you also do not demand that everyone but your police force disarm (particularly when your political culture encourages violence) unless that also serves your purpose.
