John Burbank on WA gov't.: On providing quality public services, ‘we have met the enemy and he is us’

John Burbank (The Stand):

Back in the 1960s, there was a comic strip named Pogo. One of the most insightful strips was a distilled discussion of human foibles, in which Pogo announced, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”

When it comes to the national debate over the 99% vs. 1%, we may not like the growing chasm between corporate elites and the rest of us — but we’ve sure made it easy for them to keep it that way.

Take our own state. Our state will become $25 billion wealthier over the next two years (that’s how much our economy will grow). And yet for some reason, we can’t seem to find enough funding to keep up with public priorities. So we will likely see tuition at Everett Community College break the $4,000 mark, and the University of Washington will probably charge over $12,000. Class sizes in elementary school will top 30 kids or more. More people will be kicked off of Basic Health, right at the time when even more low-wage working people need health insurance. MORE...