Down the road a piece: Snow job

I'm now in my fourth week of life on the farm in Rising Sun, Maryland, and things have settled into something of a routine that goes like this: Sleep, snow, shovel, work, snow, shovel, work, sleep. Just getting from the house to the road can take 20 minutes when the snow is drifting, which it always is.

As you know from my earlier posts, my daughter Lily is taking off from four-year college to help in the care of her grandfather. She is, however, attending the local community college. Like such schools in North Carolina, this one is strained beyond capacity. She got in because she's an out-of-state student paying higher tuition than locals.

North Carolina, of course, faces similar or worse challenges. After destroying our economy, Republicans are now licking their chops to destroy our public education system as well. There are not enough jobs being created now to turn the tide of structural unemployment, and that will not change in any appreciable way over the next ten years. But instead of raising taxes to fully fund community colleges and public schools, Republicans are doubling down on stupid, ripping apart the only hope for many to train or retrain themselves for the challenging future.

Republicans are congenitally opposed to any kind of planning except when it involves rich people getting richer. They have an instinctive phobia that prevents them from thinking ahead. And it shows.

There's a simple answer to this problem: Raise taxes on multimillionaires. Too bad neither the Tarheel Taliban nor Governor Perdue have the strength of character to do the right thing.