Thursday, September 28, 2006

Bodymore

Baltimore has been a liberal stronghold for over 150 years, with democrats dominating every facet of its government. No Republican has been elected to the state legislature from the city in more than 50 years. No Republican has served on the City Council in more than 60 years. With that kind of rule, shouldn't Baltimore be a liberal utopian city providing quality education, neighborhoods free from crime and free health insurance for all? Shouldn't they be a beacon of economic light for both manufacturing and service jobs providing some of the highest wages in the country? The reality is quite the contrary.

Since the 70s the city's approach to their economy has emphasized a state sponsored capitalism that relies almost entirely on federal and state subsidies as opposed to market investments as the key to economic growth. Annapolis and the federal government provide a full 40 percent of the cities funding. Due to this kind of reliance, Baltimore has lost control of its once city controlled entities such as the jails, the courts, the port administration, the airport and the community college. Throughout the 90s, while other formerly industrial cities saw renewal, Baltimore's economy sagged, losing 58,000 jobs to the suburbs.

Education is no better. The high school graduation rate is an abyssmal sub 40 percent, worse than every other city save Detroit. State education officials recently labeled six Baltimore City public schools as persistently dangerous. Unfortunately, Annapolis democrats appear unwilling to reform the schools as they approved a measure to delay state takeover of the 11 worst schools and overrode Governor Ehrlich's veto of said legislation.

City Crime Rankings rank Baltimore second again only to Detroit among the most dangerous cities. In 2005, there were 269 murders in Baltimore. Although this is lower than its 1993 high of 353 murders, the current murder rate is nearly seven times the national rate.

For a party that prides itself on providing health care for all , a 2003 study showed that Baltimore has massive amounts of uninsured and and long delays for public assistance. The study, sponsored by the Open Society Institute-Baltimore (OSI-Baltimore) and the Baltimore Community Health Consortial concluded that more than 80% of Baltimore's low-income, poor and homeless families reported being uninsured.

The mayor of Baltimore, Martin O'Malley has had six years to grasp at least one of the aforementioned quality of life issues and attempt to make a name for himself with democrats and republicans. The truth is Mayor O'Malley has been making promises to do for Maryland what he was unable to achieve during his six year run in Baltimore and democrats from Baltimore, PG and Montgomery County are ready to hand this man the governorship. While Governor Ehrlich's record during his short run as governor may be far from remarkable, it is far from damnable considering he is up against an uncompromising liberal general assembly who is more concerned with recapturing their political hold over Maryland. Are we ready to return to the one party rule of government that has proven time and again that it can't provide an economy or healthcare or a life devoid of crime or quality education?

At what point will liberals begin to question their own policies? Show me a city that is so historically dominated by any other party and fails so miserably, as our own inner cities have failed, and I swear I would NEVER vote that party again. Ever!

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