Cheap Eggs and Private School Tuition

Oligarchy is expensive...

I am writing this post at a Mazda dealership two hours from home. It’s raining, so there are several bored car salesmen pacing the building. It seems a few of them have a Monster or Red Bull addiction and I think that may have something to do with the nervous energy in the building.

The pacing…

Thank god they have free water and Wi-Fi. I tried the coffee. I don’t recommend it.

You’d think I drive for a living. I don’t, but I have managed to put 70K miles on my car since September 2022. Seventy thousand miles. I have crisscrossed Missouri dozens of times. I have driven to Illinois and South Dakota and Kansas and Minnesota and Nebraska. I know the Midwest and I speak in all corners.

I drive by cornfields so big that they look like the ocean at first glance. A midwestern mirage.

I noticed a slow leak in one of my tires while heading out to another speaking engagement. I pulled into a tiny shop just over the Iowa border. The mechanic didn’t have time to fix my tire. He aired it up and told me to stop about 45 minutes north at another shop who did have the time. He called ahead for me.

That is what we call Midwest nice.

I drove to the next shop and they pulled my car into the bay to look at my tire. I sat in the waiting room with several other people. The TV was on but it was tuned to a local AM radio station. There were several reports about corn and bean and hog prices. Then, the hosts came back to talk about the Trump policies they were looking forward to. They were explaining Trump cabinet picks calmly like the world isn’t on fire.

I can’t relate.

This isn’t Fox News or Breitbart or Newsmax…this is local farm radio. They might be MAGA, but you wouldn’t know because they aren’t talking about culture wars. They are talking Ag markets. Prices. Futures.

It is the constant hum of background noise that contributes to voting habits out here.

The mechanic came out and told me that he couldn’t help me. The slow leak was caused by a cracked rim. He said I’d have to find a Mazda dealership to buy a new rim, which brings me to my current situation.

The rim is $600. Good god almighty.

The reason it cracked? A huge pothole. I knew it when I hit it. It felt like my soul left my body as my car hit a bomb. It was massive. Likely had its own zip code. Par for the course. Driving in NWMO is like crossing a minefield. The road hazards are everywhere. Chip and seal rather than pavement or asphalt. No shoulders. No stripes. No signs.

The view from my car. NWMO has some of the worst roads in the state.

If MAGA voters thought the price of eggs was high, just wait until they are buying tire rims and driving 100 miles for healthcare and paying school tuition after the public schools close.

It is expensive to live under an oligarchy.

Missouri has had a GOP supermajority for over two decades now. Twenty-two years under the iron grip of a party that has tipped its hat to fascism. But the boring part is the oligarchy. The way we have played the frogs in the slowly warming pot. The way we have acquiesced to failing infrastructure and defunded schools and closed hospitals. The way we co-signed onto oligarchy.

The way we owned the libs by paying taxes and then paying out of our own pockets for the things our taxes should have paid for. The way we fund the billionaires and suffer the loss of the public good.

The Heritage Foundation has already written the plan in a neat little package called Project 2025. I did read much of it, but I didn’t need to.

I have lived under the pilot project for two decades. My state has been the playground of the ultra-wealthy for a long time. These oligarchs have purchased offices like the Attorney General in Missouri. A Chinese Hog lobbyist paid for the bus my new Governor used to travel the state to rail against foreign governments owning Missouri farmland.

Could it be any more on the nose?

The oligarchs also have folks in the State Legislature like Smithville, MO Representative Josh Hurlbert. Josh is a part-time legislator and full-time employee for the Herzog Foundation, a Christian “school choice” organization seemingly worth close to a billion dollars.

The Herzog Foundation is on the Advisory Board for Project 2025.

Rep. Hurlbert has written at least six bills to funnel Missouri taxpayer money to private religious schools. He is a workhorse for the “school choice” oligarchs while also serving as a State Rep.

*The Herzog Foundation was created by the same family who founded the Herzog Contracting Corporation. It is a construction company that consistently wins state bids to build and pave Missouri highways. I wonder if the Herzogs would stand to gain under the privatization of schools and roads?

One may never know…

Over thirty percent of Missouri schools are on a four-day week because the state funding levels dropped. The state didn’t fully fund the bus formula for years and schools had to dip into the general fund to get kids to school. Missouri starting teachers are 50th in the country for pay. We fund our classrooms at 49th in the country.

We also just passed a school choice bill that will send $450 million to private religious schools. We can’t find the money to fund the public good, but we sure can find the cash to support privatization.

Most states with school vouchers see an increase in private school tuition. The voucher is a coupon for those already able to pay for private school. The tuition increase is meant to keep kids like mine and yours out.

The riff-raff can head back to the defunded public school — while it’s still open. Oligarchs can afford tuition.

If you need specialized healthcare, you’ll need to drive a few hours. Your family members will need to stay in a hotel. It’s expensive. The oligarchs don’t care — they have doctors who make house calls and they can afford a hotel room.

If you need childcare for that four-day school week or just to go to work like most people, you’ll see that there are childcare deserts. The oligarchs don’t care about childcare. They have nannies.

We lose under an oligarchy. Not just services, but opportunity. How many Missouri parents miss a promotion because they stay home once a week with their kids? How many women disappear from the workplace with a forced pregnancy? How many folks live paycheck-to-paycheck because they are in the tire shop three times a year or because they are forced to pay private school tuition when the public school closes or because they are forced to drive hours for basic healthcare needs?

The fascists will come soon enough. I am afraid they will strip us of liberties and rights. But, the oligarchs will be the first to march in and strip us of resources and the common good. I know this because I already live a version of it.

Here is some advice from someone who has been at this for a while: don’t go quietly. If you can safely stand up to the oligarchs, do it. Keep a diary noting events. Subscribe to local papers doing the work. Subscribe to writers who will tell you the truth and report from the ground.

Use your local boards to push back on defunding. City Council. School Board. Library Board. Join them to speak up on the harm caused by sending taxpayer money to grifting oligarchs while communities go without services.

Stand up. Link arms. Keep receipts. Talk back.

~Jess