The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Baltimore Officials’ Entitled Attitudes

Oct 1, 2018

A Baltimore city pension fund director spent $220,000 on renovating her office. Since she used pension funds without permission, she was fired.

How did someone imagine it was okay to spend that kind of money for an office at work? Perhaps she was inspired by an IT director at Baltimore City Public Schools headquarters, who spent $250,000 of taxpayer dollars in renovating his office a few years ago? Perhaps she got the impression that anything goes, like the Baltimore city employees in the mayor’s office, who spent city funds for their own benefit, as shown by a recent audit.

In Baltimore, for more than 50 years, it has been Democrats in office. Elsewhere, the exact same thing is found among Republicans: like Dr. Ben Carson who spent more than $30,000 taxpayer dollars on some furniture for his office. Or Nikki Haley, U.S. representative to the United Nations, who spent $52,700–on new curtains!

These officials serve the interests of the wealthy every day. Of course they think they’re entitled to all the “perks.”