Simultaneously, Obama joined up with a clutch of leftist community organizers who attributed the troubles of Chicago’s inner cities to the very existence of suburbs. Among this early group of mentors, Obama was personally closest to Mike Kruglik. Kruglik and his fellow organizers noticed that even when their groups succeeded in forcing some local politician to increase government spending, neighborhood conditions failed to improve. Instead of drawing the lesson that big government doesn’t work, Kruglik and his fellow organizers seized upon a different explanation. They discovered the work of Myron Orfield and David Rusk, national leaders of the fight against suburban “sprawl” — and sponsors of a bold plan to redistribute suburban tax money to the cities.
Orfield and Rusk attributed urban decline to taxpayer “flight” to the suburbs. In their eyes, compulsory redistribution of suburban tax money to cities was the only lasting solution to urban decay. Kruglik and Obama’s other community organizing mentors embraced these ideas and have crusaded for them ever since. From his position on the boards of a couple of left-leaning Chicago foundations, Obama supported his mentors’ anti-suburban activism for years. Likewise, from the time he entered the Illinois State Senate right through to his service in the U.S. Senate, Obama continued to work closely with Kruglik on his anti-suburban crusade.
To this day, Obama quietly coordinates his administration’s policies on urban/suburban issues with Kruglik, Orfield, and Rusk. Kruglik’s anti-suburban battle is set to become one of the defining themes of Obama’s second term. Although calls for “regional tax-base sharing” will strike the public as something entirely new, the program is the fulfillment of the president’s lifetime ambition. Still trying to avoid being mistaken for a middle-class, suburban “sellout,” Obama has hit upon the ultimate solution: a massive redistribution of suburban tax money to America’s cities.
That would not be in the interests of America’s suburbanites or, ultimately, anyone else. Redistribution kills the growth that benefits everyone. Once voters realize that there has never been a president more ideologically opposed to the suburbs, or more reliant on redistribution as a policy, they should know what to do – especially all those suburbanites on whose judgment the election itself will turn.
Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of the new book, Spreading the Wealth: How Obama Is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities
Comment from a reader: ”
This certainly fits the narrative of Agenda 21 or Sustainable Development. The plan is to suck the life out of the Suburbs as punishment for their evil ways. Also, leveraging federal aid to force ‘Sustainable Development’ is how regulations originating from the UN, Agenda 21, become established into US law. This is very dangerous.
When you hear terms like “Sustainable Communities”, “regional equity”, and “smart growth” every alarm bell on your head should go off.”