One day before he is set to return as a presidential candidate, Ben Carson argued that Baltimore has been “the victim of errant thinking” and liberal polices over the past 50 years.
Carson made the comments Wednesday night to Fox News’ Megyn Kelly less than 24 hours before he is slated to return to Charm City at a church event in East Baltimore to meet with community leaders. (RELATED: Ben Carson To Meet With Pastors In Baltimore)
In the interview, the 2016 GOP candidate blamed Great Society programs and the war on poverty for many of the issues plaguing the city, adding that “a lot of money” was thrown at the problems and “the result has not been very good.”
“I want to ask you about Baltimore where you lived for so long. Earlier Marc Thiessen said Baltimore doesn’t have a racism problem, it has a liberalism problem,” Kelly told the retired neurosurgeon. “What are your thoughts on that?”
“Well, Baltimore like so many other big cities, have been the victim of errant thinking,” Carson said. “You know, it really kind of started back in the ’60s with the great society programs and the war on poverty. And a lot of money was thrown at these things without really thinking it through. and the result has not been very good.”
“You know, we have huge numbers of people on food stamps and on various welfare programs, out-of-wedlock births, and, you know, that has its own set of consequences because that woman usually stops her education and the kids, you know, grow up in poverty,” Carson told the FNC host.
“We need to stop for a moment and ask ourselves ‘how do we get out of these situations?’ What has worked? We know that throwing money at it, federal programs, has not worked,” Carson said. “But when I go around the country, I speak at a lot of places where there are community-based programs for business, industry, Wall Street, academia, at churches. Get involved on a personal level with people. And those are the ones that actually bring people out of poverty, and it benefits all of us as a society.”
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