My half-sister lived in a trailer her whole life. She was a working-class rural Texas woman who loathed Bush and fought for union rights in her manufacturing job. She grew up poor and stayed poor, because she could never afford to do anything but work as soon as she graduated from high school.

Her children -- all of them brighter than George W. Bush, Dan Quayle or Donald Trump -- remained poor as well, and also live in trailers.

I, on the other hand, graduated with a master degree and work as a software developer and own my home.

Why the vast difference?

I had the good fortune to be the daughter of my father's second wife, a wife with well-to-do parents who paid for my college education AND my graduate school education AND left me enough of an inheritance to put a solid down payment on the house.

I've worked to make the best of every advantage I was given, but I have NEVER fooled myself into thinking that I would be as comfortable as I am today if not for that very crucial boost in education.

Poverty breeds poverty because it takes money to get ahead when you're just average. My partner is above-average and won full scholarships for her entire college education -- I admire her greatly for a feat that I would not have been able to match. But no one should have to be exceptional to get a grip on the middle class life when so many mediocre to inferior people simply start out there and coast for the rest of their lives.