Thirty years of "Democratic policies" have destroyed our inner cities?

[kentuck]

This is the argument-du-jour of the Republicans. It is the Democrats that are totally to blame for the problems in our inner cities. No doubt, Democrats shoulder some of the blame.

However, we should not overlook the fact how Governors like Jindal in Louisiana, Walker in Wisconsin, and Brownback in Kansas, and others, have affected the standard of education and living in their states, including their inner cities.

When the tax base disappears, when companies move to other states with lower wages or to other countries, when legislatures pass right-to-work laws, when they cut the social safety nets from under poor people, there are consequences.

And these acts have not been perpetrated by Democrats alone. Republicans cannot escape some responsibility for the conditions of our inner cities and the ensuing social problems that followed.

If we wish to be honest, we would have to admit that this decline began with the Reagan Revolution, with the huge tax cuts, the huge defiicits, and tales of welfare recipients picking up their checks in their Cadillacs.

This lie needs to cease.

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Just another GOP

false equivalency,supported by bogus facts.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. After Carter, there was a drastic cut to urban renewal.

Reagan cut federal spending programs by shifting the cost to state and local governments. State and local governments couldn't raise taxes to make up for the deficits of federal dollars. Cities went neglected and sparse resources had to be shifted and reallocated just to balance the budge (if they were lucky).

[mopinko]

3. rauner in illinois and rethugs before him in springfield

have been whittling away at education here for decades.
the state constitution says the state must pay "the majority" of school funding. but somehow that was interpreted to mean just the most, and not 50%+1.
federal dollars used to make up the difference for many poor school districts, but we know how things have been in d.c. for a couple decades.

rauner will join the former governors in prison, if there is any justice in the world.

[JI7]

4. after blacks gained legal civil rights the conservatives begin to oppose

govt supported programs which would help blacks the way it did whites before.

If we had a media more like many foreign countries these things would be discussed . But instead many tv "reporters" are more like reality show types who would rather do lazy crap like bringing up robert byrd.

[yardwork]

5. The Republicans were saying that 30 years ago.

I remember George H. W. Bush saying that "30 years of liberal policies" were the reason for the Rodney King riots.

[Warpy]

6. They don't say that to me any more

because I pin them down as to which policies and then point out which party has been in control (sometimes in control of all 3 branches of government) and has done absolutely nothing about these supposedly odious liberal policies.

At some point, doing nothing becomes an act in itself for which a person or party in control is fully responsible.

It's hilarious that they keep blaming liberals. Liberals went out of power in 1969, nearly 50 years ago. Conservatives in both parties have run the whole shebang during that time. One wonders how long ruinous policies have to be maintained before a conservative will admit failure. My guess is perpetuity.

[kentuck]

8. "doing nothing becomes an act in itself "

Very true.

[muntrv]

7. 6 years of Rick Snyder led to Flint water poisoning.

[OrwellwasRight]

9. That's just a modern variation of the

welfare dependency argument. E.g., "Welfare has created a generation of lazy people who don't know how to work and expect everything to be handed to them." (<-- they say)

I don't see any difference between what Trump is saying and what Republicans have been saying since Ronald Reagan days.

[CrispyQ]

10. Republican control at the state level is why inner cities are doing so poorly &

the dems have no one to blame but themselves.

The Trouble For Democrats That’s Not Spelled With a Capital T-R-U-M-P
While the party has been making history at the national level, it's losing ground in the states.

BY KATHY KIELY | JULY 27, 2016

http://billmoyers.com/story/trouble-democrats-thats-not-spelled-capital-t-r-u-m-p/#.V5kEcNTzHwE.facebook



snip...

Since 2010, in contests for state House and state Senate seats, Democrats have racked up a net deficit of 913 seats. Republicans now control 68 of the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers, a historic high. Of the 31 states where one party enjoys a “trifecta” — holding the governor’s office and majorities in both state legislative chambers — Republicans are in charge in 22.

snip...

“In 2010, we gave away the House of Representatives for a decade,” Rathod said, referring to the congressional redistricting maps, redrawn after every new Census. In most states that’s done by legislators, and in most states Republicans controlled the process. The result are district lines that are so favorable to Republicans that many experts believe it will take another redistricting for Democrats to even have a prayer of regaining the House speakership.

snip...

In Rathod’s opinion, Democrats have only themselves to blame. Even though both President Obama and outgoing Democratic National Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz started out as state legislators, “The Democratic Party has effectively ignored down-ballot races,” he says. The situation has become so dire that Politico reports the president will campaign for state legislative candidates this fall. He has a lot of catching up to do. Republicans “have made smart and large investments in both state races and infrastructure building that has allowed them this historic control of state legislative chambers and policymaking at the state level,” Rathod says.

Prior to the 2010 cycle (the elections that would determine which party had the upper hand in the redistricting of state legislative and congressional lines that followed that year’s census), Republicans launched an effort to target state legislative races that would maximize the party’s control over the redrawing of district lines, a process overseen (and now bragged about) by the Republican State Leadership Committee.

[superpatriotman]

11. This!

Dems need to take the country back at every level, not just the highest offices.
Make America great again (or something like that)!

[lpbk2713]

12. Reaganomics created the Rust Belt.

Trickle down my ass.

[brush]

13. And don't forget "white flight" that took away a huge part of the tax base to the suburbs

And of course the businesses followed taking jobs and even more of the tax base away.

Don't you just love those who self-segregate and take away all the tax base funds used to maintain the city, and the jobs, who then say: "look how years of Democratic rule has destroyed the city".

And don't forget too many trigger happy police left in the inner city who love to shoot blacks and other POCs but won't go after the drugs gangs, then they talk about all the black-on-black crime when it's really drug gang-on-drug gang crime that they won't go after.

[bhikkhu]

14. re-urbanization has been a big thing for many years now, and many inner cities are thriving

been to San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, Denver, etc? Those are a few I can personally say have gone from bust to boom over the past decade or so. Suburbs may be suffering, but generally cities are thriving.

The narrative of the OP might fit the 90's well, but trends have changed since then,

[kentuck]

15. Also...

Right-wing politicians were replaced by Democratic politicians in some states, like California. They were in bad shape until the Democrats took over.

[madville]

16. Otherwise known as gentrification

The money and businesses and professionals come back and displace all the lower-income people who can no longer afford to live there when property values, rents and taxes shoot through the roof. Double-edge sword.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

18. And that is how many city blocks out of the entire country?

"Re-urbanization" is trendy, but it is a demographic blip.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

17. Taxes can be ridiculous and a lot of city administrations have terrible attitudes

The property taxes in a lot of cities are completely fucking insane and getting anything done can be excruciating. There is a whole lot of middle ground between the big coastal cities, their taxes, vested interests and bureaucracies and Kansas.