Family In Need

Ridge tells colleagues he may retire:

Ridge, 58, has explained to colleagues that he needs to earn money to comfortably put his two children, Tommy Jr. and Lesley, through college, officials said. Both are now teenagers. Ridge earns $175,700 a year as a Cabinet secretary.

Maybe Mrs Ridge could get a job and clip some coupons or perhaps they could go on a budget.

I know it’s tough to get by in these terrible times and I do feel for the Ridge family. But, is it really difficult to send your kids through school on just 175K a year these days? Hey, maybe he should require them to, you know, take out a loan or something. Or they could do what the Governator says all those kids who can’t afford the state university in California anymore should do — do two years at community college to save money.

I know it’s class warfare to imply that the Republicans are out of touch with ordinary people’s problems, but when cabinet officials complain that $175,000 a year is chicken feed and campaign operatives are telling people that if they don’t like their jobs they should go on Prozac, you can see why people might get the wrong impression.