"Given America’s experience with hundreds of urban riots and the ensuing calls for “domestic Marshall Plans” to heal the wounds, recent events in Baltimore are, as Yogi Berra, once said, déjà vu all over again. The president himself kicked off
this rerun with his condemnation of community neglect, disinvestment,
joblessness, the need for better funded early education and additional
job training, plus updating the city’s infrastructure (also here). That hundreds of billions have already been squandered on similar Great Society-like nostrums to no avail is irrelevant -- we have to do something and even if these programs fail, and they will.
Government
work-related programs are designed to teach specific skills, not impart
character traits such as showing up when you’d rather stay home. How do
you transform a youngster who has drifted through life with minimal
self-control to one who without protest follows all instructions and
otherwise performs as a valued employee?
The
future looks bleak. Cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia may
eventually reverse their economic decline but their indigenous
underclasses are unlikely to participate in that revival other than by
enjoying increased no-work entitlements generated by enhanced tax
revenue. At best, as has occurred since the 1960s, only government
functionaries will profit from creating a doomed-to-fail program to find
jobs for Baltimore’s troubled youth."
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