Barack Obama dropped a bombshell on the country from 75,000 feet as he was jetting from Detroit to Phoenix during his pre-State of the Union tour: He’s going to give out free college education for anyone who gets at least a 2.50 GPA at community college. “Put simply, what I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who’s willing to work for it,” Obama said in a video. “That’s right, free for everybody who is willing to work for it.” The White House Blog said the federal wealth transfer machine will pay 75% of tuition and expect state governments to pay the rest. No word yet on how much it’s going to cost or how we’re going to pay for it, but we don’t doubt that the “wealthy” will be hit up for new taxes to pay for mediocre general education classes. As commentator Mollie Hemingway said, “This six-year high school plan is Obama’s totally smartest idea yet.” Our question is, why stop at community college? How about all higher education? “Free” stuff is awesome, right? More…

Update: The White House now says this goodie bag will cost $60 billion over 10 years. So you can probably at least double that estimate.