If only Republicans had followed his prescription for “massive investments in urban communities,” President Barack Obama said last week, Baltimore might not have become the burning, looting city it did following the death of Freddie Gray.
It’s not clear how much Maryland’s largest city would have received from such “massive investments” and how they would have been paid for in a deficit budget, but the president himself gave the city a huge bundle through his first-term American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Indeed, Baltimore received $1,831,768,487 — nearly $2 billion — through what became known as the stimulus plan. That, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis, included $837,955,866 that went to a central city ZIP code. Of that amount, $467.1 million went for investments in education and $26.5 million for crime prevention.
The education money was to “improve teaching and learning for students most at risk of failing to meet State academic achievement standards.” The crime money was to combat gang activity and provide community support for at-risk juveniles.
Obama, naturally, did not mention in his Baltimore rhetoric how much the administration already had invested in the city that saw 15 burned buildings, 144 destroyed vehicles, 20 injured police officers and more than 235 arrests following Gray’s death.