Bob Herbert

weighs in on the sorry state of Oregon's schools.

This is a killer column:

"There's a twist to the old adage here--if it ain't broke, break it. The Oregon public school system was terrific, one of the best in the nation. Now, suddenly, it's speeding along the road to ruin, the victim of a bad economy and, more than anything else, the radical antitax fever that has gripped so many Americans...

"Something ugly is happening in Oregon, and it is not unrelated to the sense of economic insecurity and the erosion of support for traditional public services that have spread across the U.S. There is a faint but unmistakable whiff of the Depression in the air. The states, collectively, are mired in their worst budget situation in half a century. Long-term unemployment across the country is way up. The lines at food banks are lengthening. And hard-core poverty, only recently on the run, is threatening a comeback..."

Herbert keeps getting better and better. I wonder if he is reading the blogs as well as reports about Oregon.