When Are We Going To Learn?
How many times do we have to drive a city into political self-destruction before we learn the Liberal lesson? Over and over again we see the adverse effects of long term Democratic policy, but we never seem to get it.
The Doomed Cycle Of Democratic Rule
Start electing Democrats, even well intentioned Democrats, and the downward cycle begins. Rarely does the cycle stop before our once beloved city is in ruin. Then, and only then, does the the cycle start anew.
Only when the businesses leave, the jobs disappear, crime runs rampant, politicians are convicted and the vacant rat-infested homes are being bulldozed do the people realize that while the benevolent promises of their long-gone political leader sounded nirvanic at the time, they never, ever lead to the promised results . . . never.
As this article in investors.com explains:
Urban Blight: A few days ago, filmmaker Michael Moore tweeted, “Flint has voted for Dems for 84 straight years” and wanted to know, “What did it get us?” He’s actually on to something.
Don’t drink the water in Flint, Mich. Federal and state officials botched a water supply switch there and ended up contaminating the city’s drinking water with lead. It’s a sad and infuriating story that has gone on far too long. It’s not quite a humanitarian crisis — blessedly, we don’t see many of those in this country — but it is a mess.
Of course blame has been liberally tossed around. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has been sued. Moore wants him arrested. (Obviously there’s a limit to Moore’s ability to think clearly, and he reached it with his Flint tweet.) Some are convinced that the private sector is the villain, because, after all, isn’t it always? The loopy left even says that the Koch brothers are at fault.
But let’s backtrack to Moore’s tweet. Flint is indeed a Democratic Party bastion. Don’t its decades of Democratic dominance deserve some of the blame? It’s the city’s “Democratic rulers,” Reason magazine’s Robby Soave reminds us, who have “robbed city residents blind to pad the pockets of public sector unions.” They’ve also been in charge as Flint has become one the country’s poorest cities (the second poorest, says the Census Bureau, for a city of its size), and a haven for criminals — it’s the most dangerous city in America, according to Business Insider.
Flint is not alone, though. America is awash with troubled, dysfunctional cities that have been electing Democratic mayors for decades.
- Detroit last elected a Republican mayor in 1957. It is now the model of urban failure — it’s recognized more for its poverty, crime, rot and bankruptcy than the great cars that it turned out into the early 1970s. It is the poorest big city in the nation, with almost 40% of the population living below the poverty line. The website Law Street actually ranks Detroit ahead of Flint as the country’s most dangerous city. Either way, it’s clear that both cities have institutionalized crime problems.
Detroit is also a pit of political corruption. Just in recent years, one mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, was convicted of corruption and sent to federal prison for 28 years, while building inspectors have been indicted on federal felony bribery charges and a former city council member was investigated in a bribery and kickback scandal.
- Chicago’s last GOP mayor was elected in 1927. The nation’s third-largest city is home to some of the worst inner-city violence imaginable. More than 2,300 people were shot there last year, and nearly 400 lost their lives to homicides.
Its finances are just as grim. “Chicago is so broke,” IBD contributor Stephen Moore explained months ago, “that its bonds are junk status, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel had to go hat in hand last week to the state capital, Springfield, for bailout money to pay the bills.” Things have been rotten enough, Moore said, to send “a record number of people … fleeing Cook County, home to Chicago.” Only a little more than half of the city’s pension liabilities are funded.
- St. Louis has been electing Democratic mayors since 1949. The Gateway to the West has become the gateway for crime. Law Street says that it’s the fourth most dangerous city in the country, Forbes says it’s the second. It had the sixth-highest poverty rate among big cities in 2014.
- The last GOP mayor of Philadelphia left office in 1952. A few years ago, Moore identified it as a favorite to follow Detroit into bankruptcy.
- Both Baltimore and Oakland had Republican mayors as late as the 1960s. In the era of Democratic rule, both are now more well known for their crime and poverty problems than for their charm and character.
- Newark, N.J., hasn’t had a GOP mayor in more than a century. It was ranked as the fifth-worst city to live in in 2015. Detroit, of course, was first.
When Democrats are in control, cities tend to go soft on crime, reward cronies with public funds, establish hostile business environments, heavily tax the most productive citizens and set up fat pensions for their union friends. Simply put, theirs is a Blue State blueprint for disaster.”