NOT THAT YOU ASKED

Usually my problem each week is trying to come up with something to write about, but that's not the case this week. This week the problem is deciding which of several topics to choose. In the Legislature there was the insane vote to continue honoring Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert E. Lee on the same day. There was also the surprisingly overwhelming vote in the State Senate in favor of the private option.

Nationally, the issue from the State of the Union speech that has generated the most talk is the President's plan to provide two years of college education for free at community colleges and vocational schools. Since most of that talk has been negative and wrong, that's what I want to focus on.

The two main objections to this idea (which will never happen anyway) are that it's just another government "freebie", and that it somehow cheapens the degree a person would receive. As I wrote above, those arguments are just plain wrong, and could best be characterized as being the same thing that you can find in piles in a pasture with a strong, unpleasant odor.

First of all this is no freebie. Every student will have paid state sales and income taxes up to that point a portion of which goes to the college he or she will be attending. Second, providing two free years of Jr. College is an investment in the future of the country. A person with a degree will earn more income in his lifetime than someone without one. That means he will pay more in income taxes during his working years. Those taxes will be going back to the very government that gave him that "free" education.

Also, as I have pointed out in this space numerous times, the key to a strong national economy is a strong, prosperous middle class. That "free" education is the best way to build and keep that sort of middle class. As I have also pointed out before, the strong economy we enjoyed in the 1950's and 1960's was a direct result of the G.I. Bill that allowed so many young men to get a college education. It worked then, and it can work now.

As for free college cheapening the degree well that's just not so. Everybody is given at least 12 years of free public education, and that doesn't cheapen the worth of a high school diploma. You can't just show up every day for 12 years and get one. You have to do the class work, and pass exams to get it. You have to earn it.

It would be the same way with two years of free college. The free part just gets you in the classroom. You have to do the work in that classroom to get a degree.

When I went to college I paid for it with government backed loans and grants. I still had to go to class, pass exams, and write papers. I wasn't given anything, and the degree I got at the end was worth just as much as if I had been able to pay for college on the front end.

When It comes to the idea of providing two years of college for free, there are plenty of good reasons to do it, and only bogus ones not to.

But, as I wrote above, there's no way this current Congress will ever pass such a bill. And that's to our shame.