Corporate tax cuts or kids and colleges?

Back in 2007, the West Virginia Legislature dramatically changed the state’s tax system, reducing business taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars per year. The package included phasing out the business franchise tax and reducing the corporate net income tax from 9 percent to 6.5 percent. Other cuts and credits would follow.

The annual dollar amount of the cuts, at least $250 million, would have been more than enough to cover the costs of undergraduate tuition for every West Virginian enrolled in state universities, which could have really been a game changer for the state.

Talk about a road not taken.

It was argued at the time that these tax cuts would “pay for themselves,” a scenario about as probable as the belief that if you take gasoline out of your car you can drive it farther. What we did get in that department was an almost annual budget shortfall, including a gap of $27 million this year that had to be made up by one-time transfers from the state Treasurer’s Office.

Usually, budget shortfalls translate into budget cuts.

And the governor’s annual budget report to the Legislature anticipates that the next several years will be even leaner.

This loss of funding has hit higher education particularly hard and raised tuition rates for students. The state spent less per student on higher education in 2018 than it did in 2008.

According to a 2017 report by the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, “Since 2008, state spending in higher education has declined by $130 million, adjusting for inflation.” Tuition rates have doubled since the early 2000s, in a state that trails the nation in educational attainment, with all that that implies in terms of lost income and lower workforce participation.

We were also promised at the time that these tax cuts would create jobs, which didn’t happen. According to the Quarterly Census on Employment and Wages, in the 10 years between 2007 and 2017, employment in all industries of all sizes fell from 706,172 to 683,807. The most recent data suggests that, at best, we’re back where we started over 12 years ago.

All of which is to say that the first 10 years of tax cuts brought the state a whole lot of nothing in the way of benefits.

Fast forward to 2020. The Legislature is once again pondering another major round of corporate tax cuts, which leads me to conclude that some people really do want it all.

The latest proposed cuts specifically involve the elimination of the business personal property tax, which covers things like machinery and equipment, tools, fixtures and inventory. There will no doubt be promises that these cuts will pay for themselves and create jobs. Déjà vu all over again.

I’m reminded of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown in the Peanuts cartoons.

This alleged “job killing” tax amounts to less than 1 percent of what businesses pay for materials, according to Census data. When you factor in other costs of doing business, such as payroll, energy and capital expenditures, we’re talking about something less than a rounding error. And one peer-reviewed study suggests that eliminating the machinery tax could have the unintended consequence of reducing employment by encouraging automation.

Eliminating this tax would affect state and local governments and particularly hit funding for public schools.

If enacted, these cuts will either mean our schoolchildren and public services take a hit or the lost revenue would be made up by increasing regressive taxes on working families.

It makes a whole lot more sense to invest in our children, workforce and communities.

(This ran as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Bare bones

Well, West Virginia finally has a state budget, assuming the governor doesn't veto it, which I doubt will happen. It's pretty bare bones.

Most disturbing is the $16 million cut in higher education in a state that desperately needs to raise its educational attainment level, which will raise costs for students. After spending half a mill on the special session.

Here are some facts about higher ed and the state budget from the WV Center on Budget and Policy:

*Average tuition at West Virginia’s public colleges and universities has increased by $4,200 since 2002, a 147 percent increase, and far outpacing inflation.

*Tuition increases, in large part, have been fueled by falling public support for higher education. Since 2008, state spending in higher education has declined by $130 million, adjusting for inflation.

*As tuitions have increased, so has student debt. The average debt of a college graduate in West Virginia has increased by 70 percent since 2005. West Virginia also has the second highest student loan default rate in the country.

*Tuition increases have eroded the value of the state’s financial aid programs. The share of tuition covered by the PROMISE scholarship has fallen from 100 percent to 70 percent.

This was the second year in a row the state skated to the edge of a government shutdown. Back in what I didn't realize were the good old days, the legislative session was 60 days with maybe a  mostly drama-free week right after to nail down the budget. I'm hoping this doesn't turn into Groundhog Day.

On the bright side, the budget doesn't include tax changes that would make the bottom 80 percent pay more while giving a big break to the wealthy, a measure that would have also cost the state hundreds of millions in lost revenue in future years. One bad year is betting than signing up for a bunch of them.

Here are two views on the budget process by two veteran reporters, Phil Kabler from the Gazette-Mail and Brad McElhenny from WV Metro-News.

Not a good sign

Over the years, I've often complained about West Virginia's sometimes skewed budget priorities. These go back way before the current economic and fiscal meltdown the state faces now. And the perfect example of this is the state of funding for higher education.

You can find my recent rants about this in the Gazette here and here.

Here's a recap of the mini-rant version:

*WV ranks at the bottom in terms of higher educational attainment;

*It's also at on near the bottom on income and poverty statistics. (Hmmmm....might there be a connection?);

*Back in 2007 and since, when times were better, the state cut taxes by more than enough to provide free instate tuition and fees to all WV students with money to spare; and

*When adjusted for inflation, WV has cut higher ed funding by more than 40 percent since 2008.

It's starting to show. As WV Public Broadcasting reports, college enrollment here has dropped for the fifth straight year.

Any way you slice it, that's not a good sign. And it's likely to get worse before it gets better--unless we fight back to restore sane budget priorities, which includes raising revenue.

Obstacles to higher ed--and the middle class

This op-ed of mine appeared in yesterday's Charleston Gazette-Mail:

I first started attending Marshall University a while back, sometime between the extinction of the dinosaurs and the most recent ice age. It really was a different world.

At the time, I was working part-time as a janitor at a local public library (writing being a fairly recent innovation at the time). I found it to be a congenial calling I pursued with something less than perfect diligence, although it vastly contributed to my appreciation for the poetry of Langston Hughes and the like.

Imagine this: After a couple of part-time paychecks, I had enough money to pay for tuition.

Like I said, it was a different world.

Since then, inequality has exploded to levels not seen since the eve of the Great Depression, college costs have risen astronomically as the federal and state governments shifted priorities, student debt has exploded and hardships have mounted for students from low-income families.

Just how many hardships students face was documented in an interesting research project in Wisconsin. A team of researchers led by Sara Goldrick-Rab, author of the new book “Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream,” studied 3,000 students who received Pell Grants while attending the state’s public colleges and universities.

They started out full of hope and enthusiasm but, six years later, fewer than half had graduated and 90 percent of those who did had debt.

In an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Goldrick-Rab summarized the finding of her research:

 Federal student aid gets it wrong, by overestimating what families can pay and underestimating the cost of education.

 Contrary to stereotypes of families supporting children, “low-income children are supporting their parents, grandparents, and even siblings, all while being unable to buy their books.”

 Many are going without adequate food and, sometimes, shelter.

 While there’s nothing new about students working, many low-income students today are either looking for jobs they can’t find or holding down as many as three to get by.

 Debt, and its shadow, impact education, as well: “Feeling forced into borrowing is contributing to stress during college. To make money through work and minimize their loan exposure, students sacrifice participation in the sorts of academic and social activities that build networks and learning, the kinds of activities than increase the economic returns of their degrees.”

The real kicker is that the evidence suggests that academic success comes down to money: “Price, not intellect or effort, is the primary sorting mechanism in today’s colleges ... . Time after time, the failure to complete college does not reflect intellectual inability but rather an inability to pay.”

I’ve often had conversations with West Virginians who were stranded, unable to graduate and saddled with debt they had trouble paying on low wages and no benefits, which, in turn, made more education that could lead to a better job more inaccessible.

There’s something messed up about a situation where CEOs and corporations have an easier time dodging promised benefits to workers and retirees than ordinary people do dealing with debt for higher education.

If we’re going to move forward as a nation — let alone as a state that ranks at the bottom in educational attainment — we need to address issue of affordability. But we also need to work together to ensure that those who are trying to move forward can meet the basic needs for food, shelter and safety that make learning possible.

Trolled

This morning I got a message from a friend saying that I'd managed to tick...well, he used another word...off someone as far away as Idaho. I wondered how that happened as my reach doesn't usually extend that far.

It turns out it came from someone at a right wing "think" tank that among other things denies climate change. I don't think the article had a lot to do with what I wrote (check here). Here goes:

In his recent op-ed, “Our words say education but our actions say something else,” Rick Wilson shows himself ignorant of reality, or else intent on ignoring it.

Wilson argues for West Virginia making college tuition free, or less costly. Mr. Wilson, there’s no such thing as a “free” education. We may make education less costly for students, but what about for the taxpayers?

Giving away free college educations to everyone is a nice sentiment, but it isn’t practical, nor will doing so provide the economic and societal gains purported. Look at our situation now: The government made it so easy to get a federal student loan, it created an artificially inflated marketplace. If students didn’t have such easy access to loans, thousands fewer would be able to attend college, and colleges would be forced to lower their prices — thus reducing the student loan debt that haunts people into old age — or else go out of business.

The ease of acquiring a student loan has also been at the expense of education quality. Because more people are able to attend college, an increasing number feel it is necessary for career success to obtain a college degree, even from a mediocre or low-quality institution. College degrees are a very expensive rite of passage these days that end up meaning very little when everyone is expected to have one. A college degree has become a money-making scheme that institutions use to siphon money from students (and taxpayers), without helping them to obtain increased knowledge, skills or training.

Teresa Mull
Education Research Fellow
The Heartland Institute
Driggs, Idaho

Uhhh gee. I guess I was totally wrong. Higher ed is stupid. I recant. On the other hand, I do have the solace of a good deed since feeding trolls is a form of Christian charity.

Please don't call it a you-know-what

This op-ed of mine ran in today's Gazette-Mail.

I’m not terribly superstitious, aside from certain basic scientific precautions, like knocking on wood, throwing spilled salt over the left shoulder, not rocking an empty chair, not wearing a race T-shirt until I cross the finish line, and making sure to sit down before leaving if I forgot something.

One superstition I will own up to, however, is about a phrase that nearly always brings bad luck to people trying to improve things in West Virginia.

The dreaded phrase, which I have often begged people not to use in my presence, is “It’s a no-brainer.” I’m not sure what this says about us as a state, but it seems like the no-brainers are the hardest things to get done.

Here’s an example. It is known that:

 Educational attainment at every level is associated with higher earnings and lower rates for unemployment.


 West Virginia ranks at or near the bottom among states in educational attainment.

 We are also at or near the bad end of the scale on things like poverty, low median incomes, unemployment and such.

In a rational world, if such existed, policymakers here would make raising the level of post-secondary education a top priority, which would involve supporting public higher education institutions and working to make access to them more affordable. It would be a ... no-brainer.

I’m not just talking about four-year colleges and beyond. Community college and vocational training are just as important. Harper’s Magazine recently reported in its Index that the average change in annual earnings for students who attend a vocational program at a public community college was $1,544, while it fell by $920 for those who attended one at a for-profit college.

Instead, we’ve gone the other way. Tax cuts enacted since 2007 would have been more than enough to provide free in-state tuition and fees to all students — with some to spare. The tax cuts were intended to help create jobs that never came. But with a more highly educated population, who knows what might have happened in terms of entrepreneurship and attracting outside investment?

We’ll never know.

As if that wasn’t enough, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported in May that “West Virginia has cut funding for higher education by 42.4 percent since 2008 when adjusted for inflation, a decrease of $2,060 per student.” During that time, the average tuition per student has risen by $2,135, or about the same percentage. Growth in incomes or aid hasn’t come close to closing that gap.

It gets worse.

Given the state’s budget woes, many of which were self-inflicted, it’s likely that higher education and those who would benefit from it are likely targets for more cuts. Some Republican legislators have proposed privatizing state institutions, such as the School of Osteopathic Medicine. During the budget special session, it was even proposed to zero out Fairmont State University and the WVU Institute of Technology.

Such proposals ignore not only the need for a more highly educated workforce, they also ignore the significant role of public higher education institutions in driving the state’s economy.

The WVU Bureau of Business and Economic Research recently investigated the economic impact of these institutions, collectively and individually. The methodology included factoring in direct university expenditures on goods and services; payroll and benefits; and out-of-state student expenditures, all of which circulate through local communities.

While some institutions have more of an impact than others, they found that collectively:

 The $401 million invested in state appropriations helped generate $2.7 billion in economic activity. That’s a return rate of $7 for every $1 of state funding.



 These institutions directly and indirectly supported more than 24,000 jobs statewide. These jobs had compensation of around $1.4 billion and generated around $60 million in revenue.

I’m a bit at a loss to choose an appropriate metaphor to express how bad an idea further cuts to higher education would be for all these reasons. My three top contenders would be cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, killing the goose that laid the golden aid, or, for the biblically minded, selling our birthright for a pot of stew, like Esau did in Genesis.

In any case, cutting back on what we need more of is a bad idea.

That’s a ... nevermind.

The road not taken

In the latest Front Porch, we talk about higher education, state budget priorities, and the decline of coal.  And big rabbits.

Higher education in WV

Recently the Huntington Herald-Dispatch had a good editorial about the role of higher education in the state's economy. Here's how it started:

Whoever is calling the shots at the Capitol in Charleston next year may want to think twice about continuing the recent trend of reducing state aid for West Virginia's higher education institutions. Curtailing support for those institutions could undermine a key economic component of the state at a time when the Mountain State's struggling economy needs all the help it can get.

The point was underscored last week by a study from West Virginia University's Bureau of Business and Economic Research gauging the economic impact of 21 higher education institutions on their respective local economies. The study, sought by the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, concluded that those universities and colleges contributed about $2.7 billion overall to the state's economy in 2014 either directly or indirectly. While by no means the main economic engine of the state, that number equates to about 3.5 percent of the state's total economy - a significant enough portion that warrants careful handling by the state's policy makers. Altogether, that spending supported about 22,000 jobs either at the institutions or by spinoff economic activity, the study found.

Sadly, higher education continues to be cut in the state budget. Why anyone would do that in the state with the lowest educational attainment rate is beyond my understanding. But then, the Republican candidate for governor wants to increase mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenses and build more prisons while others like state senator Craig Blair want to privatize colleges and universities.

I ask again, what could possibly go wrong?

A little justice or a slap on the wrist:

Federal legal memos don't always make for the most interesting reading, but this one on the sentencing of former Massey CEO Don Blankenship is an exception:

It shocks the conscience that in the 21st century, knowing all that has been learned from decades of grief in our nation’s mines, the CEO of a major coal company would willfully conspire against the laws that protect his workers’ lives. One struggles for words to describe the inhumanity required for a mogul like Defendant to send working men and women into needless, mortal jeopardy for no purpose other than to pile up more money. The law, as it stands, offers no adequate punishment for his crime. But what the law does allow, the court should impose: a year in prison and the maximum fine. Don Blankenship owes at least that much to the men and women who worked at UBB. 

The Gazette-Mail's Ken Ward has more to say on that here.

A HOT MESS. West Virginia's state budget is in pretty much disaster mode. Programs and services have already been cut to the bone and are facing more. One perennial target of cuts is higher education, which is perverse in a state with the lowest educational attainment in the nation. A friend of mine offers some common sense solutions here. The legislative purse string, however, are held by the tax cut crew.

Life lessons from the VFD

On a longish drive through the country, the Spousal Unit and I were talking about life lessons we learned during our brief buy happy tenure on the local volunteer fire department. Here's my list:

*Candles are evil, conscious beings who want to burn down your house. Really. Unless you're a church, beware. I've seen several fires and much devastation caused by pretty candles.

*Four-wheelers are in the pay of Hades, god of the underworld.

*Try before you pry. In the VFD we had all kinds of cool tools to cut our way into buildings or vehicles. But that doesn't mean we have to use them. Try the simplest thing first before you break out the hardware. Politically speaking, don't assume you have to work at the margins. Sometimes they forget to lock the front door.

*Don't risk a life to save a thing; only risk a life to save a life.

*There is no end to desire. I remember conversations with our guys who were lusting in their hearts for a ladder truck, even though my town is pretty much a two story place.

*Four year olds are right. Firetrucks are cool.

MAKES SENSE TO ME. Here's an op-ed on how WV needs to make it a priority to put its indigenous population back to school.

WANT TO READ SOMETHING WEIRD BUT COOL? Try this.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

It's not either or

Hoppy Kercheval is a big fish in the WV media pond with his conservative commentary and news reporting for WV Metro News. Occasionally I agree with him. I remember one time when that happened we agreed in an email exchange that on such occasions we should both reconsider our opinions.

He recently wrote a commentary in which he criticizes calls to diversify WV's economy while, correctly in my view, pointing out that a major problem is our low level of educational attainment.

I would only add that doing so would be one of the best ways to diversify our economy.

(I would also point out that big corporate tax cuts, which I believe he supported in the past, have also resulted in less funding for higher ed and higher tuition costs for WV students.)

I also sorta kinda agree with his implying that state government can't do a whole lot to plan an economy. I do think, however, that it can do the kinds of things that can position an economy to grow, like having a decent infrastructure, a great educational system, a skilled workforce and a decent quality of life.

The latest

Here's the most recent Front Porch podcast. I had trouble getting worked up over this one, which is fine with me. It's about who gets access to elite educational institutions. I usually work the other end of the street.

Talking sense about West Virginia

I'm not saying it doesn't happen very often, but I'm always glad when it does. Here's a article from the State Journal that talks sense about higher education, taxes and the state budget. And then Ken Ward at Coal Tattoo tries to do the same on a bit of a tender subject these days. 

A road to nowhere

Want to get there fast? As in nowhere? Keep cutting corporate taxes and slashing job training and higher education. The sad part is the newish WV legislative majority may want to go nowhere even faster.

This is your higher education system on tax cuts

It's no secret that a tax overhaul is on the newish WV Republican legislature's to-do list. This is kind of ironic, since we are still dealing with the impacts of the last round of tax cuts, courtesy of the then Democratic majority.

The jury is in on that: the main result of cutting taxes in WV is making higher education MUCH less affordable than it had to be in a state with the lowest educational attainment in the nation.

I guess learning from the past isn't much of a strong suit around here.

ONE MORE THING. Last year's chemical spill could be even more toxic than we thought.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Another civilized state?

One result of yesterday's election is that 400,000 low income residents of Virginia may become eligible for health coverage. The race was a close one between a strong supporter of Medicaid expansion and an ardent foe of anything associated with the Affordable Care Act. It's still a long way from happening there but the odds have definitely improved. I hope Virginia joins the civilized states.

Meanwhile, over 61,000 West Virginians have signed up for Medicaid since Oct. 1, which effectually reduced the number of the state's uninsured by 1/4 in a little over a month.

WHAT DID THEY EXPECT? State tax revenues are dropping and higher education is just one victim. Quite a few people are calling for raising revenue. Let the record show that these wounds are self inflicted. WV slashed corporate taxes a few years back and eliminated the regressive food tax without thinking about other sources of revenue.

TWO TO PONDER. Here are a couple interesting items from Alternet. The first tries to plumb the thinking of the Ayn Rand-type one percenters and the second ponders whether the ruling class needs anybody else these days.

PREDICTING THE UNPREDICTABLE. Can chaos theory do it?

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Information and improvement

This conversation improved and entertained both participants (although the one on the right has since shuffled off this mortal coil).

Goat Rope has recently been spending time in the company of Benjamin Franklin. Well, actually with his autobiography, but you get the idea.

Franklin achieved remarkable success in many of his endeavors thanks in no small measure to his skill in dealing with other people. As noted in yesterday's post, he made it a habit to avoid not only arguing with and directly contradicting others but also to state his own views in a modest and unassuming way.

If, as he believed, conversation is about informing others and being informed in turn and pleasing and being pleased by others, then stating opinions in a dogmatic way tends to shut things down. He said,

For, if you wish to inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modes, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error. And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence you desire. Pope says, judiciously:

Men should be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot...

Many years before Franklin, Lao Tzu put it like this:

A good soldier is not violent.
A good fighter is not angry.
A good winner is not vengeful.
A good employer is humble.
This is known as the Virtue of not striving.
This is known as ability to deal with people.
This since ancient times has been known
as the ultimate unity with heaven.

GOT THE DIPLOMA. NOW WHAT? This isn't the best of years, economically speaking, to graduate from college.

HUNGRY COUNTRY. The nation's food banks may need a bailout if things continue as

DREAM ON. Research suggests that people interpret their dreams selectively.

RELIGION ON THE BRAIN. Adaptation or accident?

A LITTLE GOOD NEWS. Blenko Glass plans to resume limited production after closing earlier this year.

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Howling ghosts

It is the official position of Goat Rope that the coolest album of the 1990s was Counting Crows' "August and Everything After." And one of the coolest songs was "Mr. Jones."

One line from that song expresses a wish of mine: "I wanna be Bob Dylan..." Or at least I'd like to be able to use words as well or as wildly as he can. As I heard Arlo Guthrie say in a concert once, Dylan seems to fish for songs upstream from everybody else, which is why he catches so many of them.

Here's a random sample of a Dylan line, from "Visions of Johanna:"

The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face.

I have no idea what that means but I wish that just once in my life I could come up with a sentence that cool.

ANOTHER CASUALTY of the recession for many Americans may be access to higher education.

STATE OF THE STATES: not good.

MORE PARTING SHOTS FROM THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: easing rules on mountaintop removal mining.

GOING GREEN. The stimulus package being developed for next year includes a green component.

URGENT TOOTHLESS FLYING DINOSAUR UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

I saw a sign there

El Cabrero has been musing lately about how sometimes I've been deeply influenced by brief and random conversations. It kind of makes me wonder how much more I might have learned if I'd been paying attention...

When I was in junior high, there was an art teacher who was the master of random comments. Come to think of it, the making of random comments is one reason why we keep art teachers around.

Somehow, when the topic or Arlo or Woody Guthrie came up, he told me that there were some verses of "This Land is Your Land" that didn't make into the school music books. I was curious and looked them up and have since been a big fan of musical subversion.

These are the ones he was talking about:

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said - no tresspassin'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.

HARD TIMES FOR COLLEGES and for people trying to go.

WHERE'S JOE THE PLUMBER WHEN YOU NEED HIM? Here's economist Dean Baker on the bailout, which is spreading the wealth around to those who don't need it.

HERE WE SIT, BROKEN HEARTED. The U.S. Supreme Court refused an appeal from Massey Energy to overturn a $260 million verdict won by Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel.

WORKING WEST VIRGINIA. El Cabrero was one of the co-authors of a new report from the WV Center on Budget and Policy looking at the state of working people in West Virginia over the last 30 years. Here's the press release with a link to the full report.

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WHO WAS DANTE ANYWAY?

The man himself, courtesy of wikipedia.

The theme lately at Goat Rope is Dante's Divine Comedy and how to enjoy it. And, yes, you really can. You will also find links and comments about current events. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier posts.

To understand the Divine Comedy, you need to know something about its author and protagonist, Dante Alighieri. The whole thing is in a sense autobiographical. I don't mean that Dante literally went to hell, purgatory and heaven (although most of us have made at least part of that journey at some point in our lives), but rather that Dante is the main character and much of the story refers to his real life.

Dante was born in Florence in 1265 to a respectable family. His father was a member of a guild. We don't know much about his education but he obviously had a good one. We also know that from childhood, he had a major crush on Beatrice Portinari, who was the subject of much of his poetry.

As a relationship, this one never went anywhere, but Beatrice was The One That Got Away (maybe a little like Charlie Brown's red headed girl). She was for him the essence of beauty. In the Divine Comedy, she came to represent spiritual grace. Dante wedded Gemma di Manetto Donati in a marriage that was probably arranged in childhood. They had several children together.

He was a poet, diplomat, soldier and politician. If you think our times are politically polarized, check out Italy in the late medieval period. There were huge tensions between Guelphs and Ghibellines. Guelphs tended to favor the papacy, while Ghibellines supported the Holy Roman emperor (Voltaire once pointed out that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire.)

In Florence, the Guelphs won decisively but then split into two opposing camps, the Black and White Guelphs. Dante was a member of the latter party. He fell afoul of political intrigues around 1301 and was exiled from Florence on pain of death for the rest of his life. He died in 1321.

Thus the Divine Comedy is a poem of exile, written after his banishment. He sets it the year before, on Holy Week in the year 1300. The journey related there helps prepare him for the exile to come and the work itself may have been his way of working through the trauma.

But here's the kicker. While Dante is definitely Dante, he is also us. His story is ours as he makes the trip. So don't just read it; put yourself in it.

OH GREAT. Employers in Britain are trying to take a leaf from US union busters.

BUT IT COULD BE WORSE. Here's a snapshot from the Economic Policy Institute on the murder of trade unionists in Colombia.

TALKING SENSE. Here's a good blog post from Create West Virginia about moving to a high road economy. The Gov. and Legislature in El Cabrero's beloved state are hooked on corporate tax cuts, but a lot of good data cries out for public investment in education.

WORKER FREEDOM BILL. A bill that would prohibit employers from requiring workers to attend meetings to listen to views on politics, religion and unions passed the WV House of Delegates earlier this week. Here are several links courtesy of Lincoln Walks at Midnight. The WV Public Radio story is worth a listen if you're wired for sound. It faces a tougher fight in the senate.

FUN ITEM. Writer Beth Lisick spent a year reading self help books and lived to tell the tale. Here's a diverting interview. Apparently some of them were pretty good.

OK, SO I'M ADDICTED. To The Wire that is. But living without cable in the sticks, we're still on season two.

SINCE WE'RE BEING KIND OF RANDOM TODAY, here's an item on C.G. Jung.

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