A political commentator says a recent National Review Online article titled "Burn Down the Suburbs?", which investigates President Obama's plan to syphon tax revenues from American suburbs to fund urban communities, is further proof of the president's socialist tendencies.
Stanley Kurtz writes in the article, "Obama is a longtime supporter of 'regionalism'" — the idea that suburbs should be folded into the cities, merging schools, housing, transportation and, above all, taxation.
Gayle Trotter, general counsel of Independent Women's Forum (IWF), thinks suburban voters need to be aware of Obama's strategy before they vote in November.
"It's a great wake-up call to suburban America, because all of these things are being done in the name of environmentalism, when it's really just another way to disguise the redistributive ideology of the political left," she explains.
The little-known "Sustainable Communities Initiative" would force suburban residents into crowded urban centers by blocking development on the outskirts of metropolitan areas and taxing more on the neighborhoods that already exist. Trotter points out that as a community organizer, Obama worked on various "anti-suburban sprawl" programs, so his push to enact such policies on a federal level should come as no surprise.
"Some of these advisors to President Obama have been working on these initiatives for a while, and he was involved in organizations that were advancing these principles previously," the attorney notes. "So, it's not a new tactic, but it seems like there is a bigger push on the federal level, where previously it was more at the state or local level."
In his article, Kurtz speculates that such an initiative, which features "regional planning grants" designed to undercut America's suburbs, would most likely be pursued during a second term of Obama.