California's Prop. 31: One Small Step for Democrats, One Giant Leap Down the Road to Totalitarianism

◼ Proposition 31 is an offense against America’s most fundamental concepts of liberty and self-government. - Doug Ross

Writing in National Review, author Stanley Kurtz describes California's Proposition 31 as "robbing the suburbs to pay for the cities."

Consider it three ominous portents of the radical Left's redistributionist agenda: to force more and more people into urban centers; to reduce mankind's greedy use of energy; and to greatly restrict personal freedom of movement (it's mass transit for you, bubba):

California’s Proposition 31 is the project of a collection of “good government” groups, in particular, California Forward. California Forward says its goal is “fundamental change.” They’re right about that. The change they have in mind, unfortunately, is creating a collection of de facto regional super-governments designed to undercut the political and economic independence of California’s suburbs. The goal is to redistribute suburban tax money to California’s failing cities.

Instead of taking on the mismanagement that is breaking California’s cities, Prop. 31 lets failing cities bail themselves out by raiding the pocketbooks of California’s suburbanites. In the process, Prop. 31 will kill off the system of local government at the root of American liberty.

...How does Prop. 31 work? It allows local governments to join together to form “Strategic Action Plans.” Supposedly, this pooling of local municipal services into a kind of de facto collective regional super-government would be voluntary. In fact, Prop. 31 deploys powerful incentives to effectively force the creation of these regional super-governments.

◼ California’s Awful Prop. 31: Is This Your Future? - Stanley Kurtz/National Review

Wake up California. You are perilously close to ratifying Proposition 31, a sweepingly redistributionist and profoundly undemocratic transformation of your way of life, and you don’t even know what’s at stake. Suburbanites of California, you are the special targets of Prop. 31. Act now, or be turned into second-class citizens in your own state.

Wake up America. Look toward the regionalist revolution on California’s horizon. In an era of looming municipal bankruptcies, this could be your fate: robbing the suburbs to pay for the cities. The regionalist transformation now being quietly pressed on California is exactly the sort of change President Obama has in mind for America should he win a second term. In California and America both, the 2012 election could open the door for a regionalist movement in hot pursuit of a redistributionist remaking of American life.

◼ Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities available at Amazon