Tuesday President Obama spoke out about the Baltimore riots, and used it as an opportunity to push a partisan message. “There’s a bunch in my agenda that would make a difference right now,” he said, and added, “I’m under no illusion that, out of this Congress, we’re going to get massive investments in urban communities.”

Of course, Obama had a Democrat-controlled Congress at the beginning of his presidency, and that did not prevent these events in Baltimore. The implication of Obama’s remarks is that the heartless Republican Congress just doesn’t care about places like Baltimore.

There is, of course, another possibility: many in Congress don’t think Obama’s prescriptions for what ails the inner city would help. Their skepticism is hardly shocking: an earlier Democrat, Lyndon Johnson, prescribed and passed a significant expansion of the welfare state in his war on poverty and in pursuit of the”Great Society.” Our inner cities are the inheritors of that grand plan.

If Obama wants to pass legislation that genuinely helps cities like Baltimore, he might begin by having a thoughtful conversation with a Republican Congress about the impact of the nanny state on inner city family breakdown. His other option is to run out the clock by throwing partisan bombs in moments of national crisis.

Obama did make one statement that should resonate with everyone who cares about the common good: it’s not enough to care intermittently in moments of crisis. We need to care all the time and focus on the problems in a sustained way. This is part of what’s needed. At the same time, caring all the time, or coming together, isn’t enough either. Also needed is prudence and an appreciation for the hard lessons of economics, history and the law of unintended consequences.