Economic & Fiscal Policy
Foolishness-as-Usual In Baltimore
May 15, 2020
The president of Baltimore’s City Council – who is hoping to become mayor – recently said something very foolish: “We must ensure the safety of Baltimoreans at all costs.”
This is the kind of bla-bla nonsense that often makes heads nod sympathetically (“ooh, he cares”) and attracts votes, but if taken seriously it will take us down a policy road that leads to disaster. Of course, Baltimore has been following a bad policy road map for a long time, resulting in seven consecutive decades of population flight and rising poverty and crime – all while demographically similar cities have reversed declines and boomed.