IT IS UNWISE TO ASK UNCOMFORTABLE QUESTIONS, COMRADE: How Many Lives Could Barack Obama’s Library Have Saved?

In the city of Chicago, which is about 90 minutes south of me, roughly 17 percent of the city’s residents live in poverty. That’s about 448,000 people, and of those, more than 160,000 were in ‘deep poverty,’ below 50 percent of the poverty threshold. That works out to about $21 per person per day. The majority of Chicago residents are Black or Hispanic, and about 29 percent of Black and 15 percent of Hispanic Chicagoans live in poverty.

It’s estimated that 25 percent of Chicagoans face food insecurity and persistent hunger.

For the 2025-2026 school year, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) face a $734 million deficit, driven by the end of federal pandemic aid and pension obligations. On top of that, students in CPS test well below the national average in math and reading, with just 31 percent proficient in reading and 18 percent proficient in math.

Chicago is also one of the most violent cities in the United States, with 416 homicides and 1,471 shootings in 2025. For the start of 2026, homicides are up roughly six percent and shootings are up slightly, too.

Despite these deplorable statistics, Democrats celebrated the Barack Obama Presidential Library, which opened about two weeks ago. The brutalist building, which looks like something straight out of the Empire in Star Wars, cost roughly $850 million.

To be fair, Barack didn’t build his library with his own money, either.