Universities

From the Las Vegas Sun: "In what must have been one of his most painful tasks in office, UNLV President Neal Smatresk warned faculty leaders Tuesday to prepare for a budget catastrophe -- news that left some in tears. Smatresk at times sounded almost in mourning as he spoke to the Faculty Senate, saying he had instructed his provosts to start planning for more cuts in staff, departments and programs. The faculty was angry and indignant.
'I’m sick we are destroying much of what we’ve built,' said Cecilia Maldonado, an educational-leadership professor and chairwoman of the Senate." Well, Cecilia, the taxpayers in Nevada feel much, much worse. Have you checked their unemployment numbers lately, Cecilia? Have you checked to see how many people in Nevada are out of work? They've been given a bill for all the reckless spending at the university.

"'This amounts to foreclosure,' said Greg Brown, a history professor and president of the Nevada Faculty Alliance, a professor group." This amounts to foreclosure, he said. Well, you know, there are millions of Americans who have suffered through real foreclosures, Mr. Brown. They've lost their jobs. They've lost their homes. You're worried about cutbacks. You're not gonna get a whole lot of sympathy. Fantasy land has come to a screeching halt. You just got transferred to Literalville. Same place I live. And you people in Wisconsin, you better come to grips with the fact that you live in Literalville as well.

"Michael Bowers, UNLV’s provost, noted that UNLV is 54 years old and that he has worked there 27 years. 'I never thought this day would come, but we have to plan,' he said. The emotional display was unprecedented, Bowers said after the meeting, 'because we’ve never had a situation like this before.'" Well, you've never run out of other people's money before. This is just the beginning. This is what happens when you run out of other people's money. But if you notice the tone of this story, these are like war heroes, people losing their jobs or may be downsized. I don't want to come off as insensitive here, but being that I live in Literalville, since when did state employees take on the status of war veterans? Since when did their jobs and benefits take precedence over everything else?

Borders books just went into Chapter 11. Look at the number of people looking for work at Borders. What did they get undercut by? Internet. Store employees at Borders are gonna lose their jobs, others will get fewer hours, a lot of stores are gonna close. I haven't seen the stories about all the employees there shedding tears. How about we get a story of all of the taxpayers crying 'cause they're watching their hard-earned money get thrown down rat holes by this administration? My point is the sympathy is selective. Somehow there's a valor involved if you are a state employee and you have your salary cut back or you lose your job.

We're not getting any stories about how unemployed state workers and union workers are benefiting from their new status. We're not getting the stories about how they're coming together and getting closer to their families and closer to nature and finding more productive uses of their time. But when average, ordinary Americans were laid off and losing their jobs, we got all kinds of stories about how good it was for them. Now we get stories from New Jersey to Wisconsin to Nevada about the sorrow, the unfairness, and the insensitivity involved. It's now state, federal workers facing the same thing private sector workers face every day. It's just what happens when you run out of other people's money.