We All Pay The Price For Decades Of Inaction
The major cities across the country continue to be breeding grounds for crime, failing schools, blighted neighborhoods and incompetent leadership. The police departments are overworked, understaffed and receive no support from local government and it appears the very people they try to protect. Milwaukee is one of the worst. Given the amount of money piped into Milwaukee, the fraud, waste and abuse must be through the roof. And the Milwaukee crime that seeps, or should I say, “floods” into the surrounding counties is costing millions of dollars, and countless lives.
We need to ask WHY, and we need to keep asking it. Sooner or later, we will get to the root cause of the problem. Why are the major cities in turmoil? Because schools are bad? Why are schools bad? Because the social environment is bad? Why is the environment bad? Because the people who live there allow it. They allow children to grow up without a two-parent family. They allow their schools to graduate students that can’t read. They allow judges to put hardened criminals back on the street. They allow drug dealers and gang members to control entire neighborhoods. Why?
- Shared revenue – Milwaukee gets an exorbitant amount of the shared revenue. The per capita amounts demonstrate just how one-sided those payments are.
- Schools – Milwaukee Schools get $9,893 for K-8 students and $12,387 for 9-12 students. However, the state aid average is much lower at $7650. Meanwhile Milwaukee (and similar districts like Beloit) have miserable track records of educating kids. NOTE: With federal aid and the enormous property tax levies due to the referendums, the per pupil funding at MPS is $23,929. WOW!!!
- Crime – Milwaukee’s violent crime rate is five times greater than the rest of the state. Not only do criminals endanger law abiding citizens attending events in Milwaukee, but the crime spills over to neighboring communities. The Corrections portion of the past budget was just shy of $4 billion, a 13.4% increase. In addition, adjoining counties like Waukesha are experiencing a huge increase in court costs associated with criminals who reside in Milwaukee committing crimes in Waukesha County.
- Welfare – Milwaukee residents are twice as likely to receive SNAP benefits than the rest of the state. Milwaukee’s obesity rate is also higher than the state average.
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