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It is a truism rarely acknowledged in this country: the single most important infrastructure investment we can make for the future is in education. I'm not talking about retrofitting the buildings or constructing more classrooms. No, we provide for the future by educating our young people, preparing them to become productive members of society. Study after study shows that the higher one's education level is, the higher the median income and the less likely one is to suffer unemployment.

But we're not doing that. No, in these austerity times, politicians clamor to cut services and jobs. Teachers are demonized. Vouchers are touted as the answer, when it's simply a way to privatize profits away from public schools. Hell, some GOP would be happy if we eliminate the Department of Education altogether.

A rare and welcome progressive appearance on the Sunday shows, Rep. Maxine Waters bemoans the disconnect between what politicians say we need to focus on and what they're really doing about it:

To tell you the truth, the plight of education in this country is shameful. Just a few days ago I learned that more cities, more states are reducing the number of education days down to four instead of five. And I could not help but stop and think, "Is this America? Is this the country that said and continues to say that education is a top priority?" Why are we not investing more in education? Why do we have dropouts? Why do we have educational systems that are failing? Why is it that we have a situation where many of our young people will not be able to compete in this high technological society because they're not properly educated? And so, no, we do pay lip service to education. We don't really invest in it, and that's got to change. But let me just say this, Americans want to work. This joblessness is not only hitting the middle class, but it is hitting all classes. It is absolutely unconscionable what is happening in the minority communities. When we look at this no jobs haven't been created in August and we find in the African-American community it has increased from 16 percent, 15.9, 16 percent, up now 16.7 percent, and now we're going to talk about cutting government by $1.5 trillion, this new 12 committee membership that we have after the raising the debt ceiling debate? And that means that we're going to lose more jobs, that means more people are going to be unemployed. The African-American rate will probably go up to about 20 percent. I don't know how our country can sustain that kind of...

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A big topic on the liberal blogs has been that Republicans who took a hatchet to the stimulus bill didn't even vote for it.

I explained yesterday how the people who crafted the crappy Senate compromise bill were, to a significant degree, Republicans. Republicans who won't even vote for the bill. But I forgot to credit the guy who really put the stupid in this bill: Johnny Isakson.

On ABC's THIS WEEK, Chuck Schumer and Maxine Waters make a great point that many in the press have missed or refuse to talk about, but which bloggers have not.

SCHUMER: So let me just say this.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHUMER: We had a lot of people who said, "Take this out, take

that out."

WATERS: That's right.

SCHUMER: Most of those things were taken out, and they still

voted against the bill.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: ... so much is missing, and that's the reality.

WATERS: We took the amendments from those three Republicans who

were willing to step up to the bat.

KING: In the House, no one was allowed to take -- no Republican

was allowed to take part in the process.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Not one Republican was allowed to take part in the process

in the House.

WATERS: That's -- that is not -- that is not the truth.

KING: It is the truth.

WATERS: As a matter of fact, we should focus on, when you had

the opportunity to participate, why not do what those three moderate

Republicans did? Step up to the plate; offer your amendments. You

know, we took all of their amendments.

Do you know we reduced the neighborhood stabilization program by

a couple of billion dollars? We reduced Head Start, Early Start,

school construction. We took the amendments. And so all those who...

KING: The fact is...

SCHUMER: And one other thing...

KING: ... not one Republican was allowed at the table in the

House of Representatives when the bill was...

(CROSSTALK)

KING: I'm talking about the House.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHUMER: Let's just look at the Senate. The two biggest

amendment that we accepted were Republican amendments, $70 billion --

you disagreed with it -- Senator Grassley, AMT, $38 billion, housing

relief, Senator Isakson. They still voted against the bill.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me bring Senator Graham back into this now.

SCHUMER: We don't know what more to do in terms of

bipartisanship.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHUMER: Well, how about the Senate?

GRAHAM: If I may say, if this is going to be bipartisanship, the

country's screwed. I know bipartisanship when I see it. I've

participated in it. I've gone back home and gotten primary opponents

because I wanted to be bipartisanship.

If Republican Senators have an amendment added to a bill and then vote against the bill, that amendment should be pulled. Why should a conservative effort to water down legislation get passed and then not get the backing of the author? Goober Graham as usual performs his hyperventilating act while Democratic politicians still do a pretty poor job of explaining their positions. And not a single economist showed up on THIS WEEK...

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Rep. Maxine Waters asks CEO's about their practice of raising credit card limits at the Bank CEO hearing today. How many of us have had a sudden jump in our interest rates without ever even knowing it.Which of course never allows people to pay off the debt. Waters is making a key point here.

Waters: Since you received TARP money, have any of you increased the amount of interest on the credit cards by sending out letters to the consumers, to your credit card holders indicating that this was part of the contract even though this was in small print and you now have the ability to do it, have any of you Did any of you do that?

Did you do this?

CEO: I was volunteering. First of all I feel like corporal of the universe not captain of the universe.

Waters: Did you increase your credit card interest rate?

CEO: In 2008, we increased interest rates on 9 % of our customers.

Waters: Thank you very much, did anyone else increase credit card rates after you received TARP money? Anyone else, if so would you please raise your hand. (most of them did)

You sent out the letters I'm trying to describe? Saying that you have the authority to do that. Did any of you reduce the amount of credit that was available to credit card holders because they shopped at certain stores? Just raise your hand if you did. None of you did. Let the record reflect, none of them raised their hands.

Tom Geoghegan has repeatedly talked about the idea of helping the American consumer with their credit debt by canceling their private consumer debt which would immediately stimulate the economy. He often speaks about how these institutions can raise their rates to as high as they want. The consumer can never catch up and it's a sad practice which will cripple Americans with overriding fear about their state of finances. And as he points out in the linked video, we always come up with the money for war....