Did $1.8 Billion in Stimulus Funds Help Baltimore?

President Obama wasted no time politicizing the Baltimore riots, telling the press that he’s “under no illusion that under this Congress we’re going to get massive investments in urban communities.”

Of course by “this Congress,” he means a GOP-led Congress.

However, Obama’s rhetoric doesn’t match reality. The Washington Free Beacon found that:

The city of Baltimore received over $1.8 billion from President Barack Obama’s stimulus law, including $467.1 million to invest in education and $26.5 million for crime prevention.

President Obama claimed last Tuesday that if the Republican-controlled Congress would implement his policies to make “massive investments in urban communities,” they could “make a difference right now” in the city, currently in upheaval following the death of Freddie Gray.

However, a Washington Free Beacon analysis found that the Obama administration and Democratically-controlled Congress did make a “massive” investment into Baltimore, appropriating $1,831,768,487 though the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), commonly known as the stimulus.

According to Recovery.gov, one of Baltimore’s central ZIP codes, 21201, received the most stimulus funding in the city, a total of $837,955,866. The amount included funding for 276 awards, and the website reports that the spending had created 290 jobs in the fourth quarter in 2013.

Of this amount, $467.1 million went to education; $206.1 million to the environment; $24 million to “family”; $16.1 million to infrastructure; $15.2 million to transportation; $11.9 million to housing; and $3.1 million to job training.

The Washington Free Beacon conducted a thorough analysis of where this huge investment was appropriated in Baltimore, and it’s worth the look. Read more here.