Putting a bunch more kids in Head Start is not what's being proposed here. The main proposal is a partnership with states to ensure that all four-year-old kids from moderate and low-income families have access to quality preschool.

Expanding preschool access is a terrific idea, but it will take a lot of money and a long time to put into place.

Obama may well be hedging his bets. But as a believer in taxpayer-funded preschool for all (I prefer the term "public good," thank you), I like to think that the president's paving the way for the whole nine yards. How about that legacy, on which he seems to be working so diligently?

When we grant subsidies to large corporations, or bail out the financial leaders who led our economy to the brink, we don't ask the recipients of social largess to take semi-annual drug tests. We only mistrust the poor folks who are the victims of an increasingly inequitable society.

I never, ever thought I would hear a president of the United States, much less a president in the State of the Union address, call for universal preschool. But two nights ago, I listened to President Obama do just this.

$60 Billion: The approximate amount that extending the Bush tax cuts on income above $250,000 a year -- which Congress seems on the verge of doing -- ...