This is the beginning and the end, from which there's no finding our way back.
All over the United States, community college enrollments have surged with unemployed and underemployed people seeking new skills.
But just as workers have turned to community colleges, states have cut their budgets, forcing the institutions to turn away legions of students and stymieing the efforts to retrain the workforce.
Unemployment is highest among the nation's lesser-educated workers, and for them, community colleges offer a critical pathway to new jobs: Classes are open, relatively cheap and often tailored to picking up job skills.
The process of retraining these workers is considered vital to rebuilding the economy.
It'll get worse. In my state, incomprehensibly, people voted down an initiative that would have created an income tax (we currently have only sales taxes and property taxes) only for the very wealthy. Lowering property taxes for everyone, increasing taxes on families making more than $
It was trounced.
The reborn Republican party, enabled by teabaggerism, is not just about the ignoring of education. It's the derision of it, proudly. Along with the supplanting of it by biblical literalism. The consequences are already profound, and we ain't seen nuthin' yet.
I guess we can drive around potholes; oil won't run out for a few more decades. But the end of education is fast suicide. We have been overtaken by the false notion, promulgated by Reagan, taken to a destructive extreme by George W. Bush, and now the basis for current Republicanism, that we don't need to pay for anything, that all spending by the government is bad, that people ought to fend for themselves. That it is ruinous to our country, obvious to anyone willing to have a look, is of no importance. I got mine, f*ck you, I don't care. Credit to teabaggers for being willing to be explicit about it. Shame to everyone else for buying in, while trying to paint it as patriotism; or, worse, to call it Christianity.
I guess we can drive around potholes; oil won't run out for a few more decades. But the end of education is fast suicide. We have been overtaken by the false notion, promulgated by Reagan, taken to a destructive extreme by George W. Bush, and now the basis for current Republicanism, that we don't need to pay for anything, that all spending by the government is bad, that people ought to fend for themselves. That it is ruinous to our country, obvious to anyone willing to have a look, is of no importance. I got mine, f*ck you, I don't care. Credit to teabaggers for being willing to be explicit about it. Shame to everyone else for buying in, while trying to paint it as patriotism; or, worse, to call it Christianity.
What it is is rationalized selfishness. What it is is a death spiral.
Sorry, Frank. For once I'd like to hope that if people choose to comment on a post about what I think is a serious problem, that they address the issue rather than another of your word salad repetitions.
ReplyDeleteY'know, you could save yourself and the rest of us a lot of time: just write #1 to mean there are no black people in my state, #2 to mean Obama is a Muslim, #3 to refer to anything about homosexuality, and #4 to mean anything else about black people. #5 could be sort of a cover-all about Gitmo, DOMA, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Obama's kids, and the (former) Democratic majorities.
I think we pretty much have it all by heart now.
HaHa!!(Nelson Laugh)
ReplyDeleteY'see, "Nelson" is this mentally challenged Bully on "The Simpsons" who laughs cruelly at others misfortunes/physical handicaps.
In other words, my Roll Model...
Umm Ok, before you go all Stalin and Censor me, I did do a little research...
Washington State DOES have some Black Peoples...
I mean, the proposed Washington State Income Tax would have started at $200,000 for singles, $400,000 for couples...
And $200,000 isn't alot of money these days, even in Georgia.
So not exactly the "only for families making more than $500,000"
which isn't really alot of money these days either...
I corrected it, and gave you grudging recognition.
ReplyDelete$200K may be nothing to an anesthesiologist, and I'm sure it is. In my state, though, it's the top 5% of earners.
This post, by the way, is about the loss of education funding, and the impact thereof.
So what's your point Frankie... other than trying to be cute? Or comedic? You need some new roll models pal. Your normal off topic, off point rhetoric is so predictable and juvenile. Trailer park trash has gone mainstream- you played right into point of Sids post and don't even know it, you're a real gas!
ReplyDeleteWow, you really DID correct your Mistake, I mean error, I mean Mis-statement...are you sure your really a Surgeon???
ReplyDeleteAnd I guess MY States the Progressive one, with a State Income Tax with a top rate of 6% that kicks in at the Obscene Income of $7,001.
Oh, and we have an Electric Chair to, hey it's better than the Gallows YOUR State has.
and believe it or not, I'm typing this from the OR, and even my CRNA thinks its sad that you think $200,000 is alot of money...
and noone believes me that Washington State still has a functioning Gallows, so its off to the Wikipedia...
Frank
If increasing taxes would solve anything, California and New York would be great places to live. The truth is, whatever money government gets on the promise of spending it on one thing, it spends on something else.
ReplyDeleteSid, I think you and all your democrat friends (and there are plenty of them in Washington, I think) should just send the tax increase you wanted to impose to Olympia anyway. That should solve the problem, won't it? You'll still have the higher property tax, and now the influx of dem cash.
Otherwise, you'll only willing to spend other people's money on the government.
"I got mine, f*ck you, I don't care." would seem to be the attitude of at least some of the dems in your state, many of whom, I suspect, are quite wealthy. Including you.
--Brujita
Wow, Bj, you've been assimilated by Frank. Excellent stuff. Persuasive, fact-based, original.
ReplyDeleteFunny thing, though. The part where you addressed the subject, namely the collapse of education funding and the future impact, caused by the toxic mix of R anti-tax deception and its overt derision (and fear) of education, didn't come through. Must be some sort of cyber-error, I suppose.
P.S., Bj. I'm not buying your claim to be a woman. I'm not clever enough to be sure about IP addresses (Maryland? WIndows Vista?) but since you sound exactly like the sort of off-point and uninteresting trolls that seem to be attracted here, and eventually leave, I'm guessing you're of the male gender, if not one of the usual suspects.
ReplyDeleteMy wife is among eight sisters. Neither she, nor any of them, nor their mom, nor mine before she died, nor any women I've ever associated with, read, or observed from afar has ever been as superficial and vacuous as you seem to be.
Well, there's Palin and Angle and Bachmann and O'Donnell, of course. But with them the stupidity is so far beyond gender that I think it doesn't count.
So, nope. Not buying it. You gotta be a guy.
Hey Sid, way to go all "Crying Game" on us, and whats the deal with???, oh yeah,
ReplyDelete#1,
#2
#3
#4
#5
and what ever number "If Brujita's a Chick, so is Barbara Mikulski!" would be, guess that would be "#6"
#6
Frank
Good one, Frank.
ReplyDeleteWhich, if I were to make similar numbers for my possible responses to you, would be about a 99.