The People Will Have Their Say
Don't forget, all of this comes during a recession! We all know the best way to dig out of recession is for the government to... lay people off... and... spend less money?
Oh, that's so frustrating, Bri. I'm so frustrated by the world in general, lately. What seems particularly salient in this situation is the campaigning against the measures. It bothers me because of course it was the wrong thing to do, but also because people are such sheep. If they have something shouted at them enough, they believe it. Argh! People love the one-line nugget of "reasoning" they can spout off while in line at the post office.
I'm lucky that CCRI has worked so hard not only to keep staff on but to increase faculty (otherwise I wouldn't have a job) in the midst of a budget crisis in RI. I suppose a community college can make more of a case than other institutions because people turn to community college when they lose their jobs, or just to improve their lives. So that's a story of an institution that's worked to improve during this. UMD, OTOH, is in tough shape, actually laying people off. I can't ever remember a layoff at UMD. (And of course because of unions, the dead weight won't go. I'm not by any means anti-union, but it's certainly not a perfect system.)
Yeah you guys do seem to be f%^#ed. Mass isn't exactly in great shape but at least it looks like they'll raise the sales tax to 6.25%. It's being campaigned against by advertising it as a 25% increase! which is true but I mean $1.25 per $100 dollars is going to make you not buy that iPOD. Really... Really???
I wish they'd also have passed the gas tax increase and really wich they'd just bite the bullet and put the income tax back wghere it used to be but the legislature ain't that brave (I don't thihnk it's even been suggested).
Meanwhile a bad economy is at least leting me visti your lovely state next week really cheaply (Virgin America tix to SF for $215 round trip and cheap hotels) so it's not all bad. Anythiogn I can do to help the economy.
NONE of the 6 CA ballot measures were citizen "ballot initiatives." ALL were referendums put on the ballot by the legislature. But citizens WILL be blamed for what the leg. did, because of this almost-universal misreporting. Politicians who are trying to make the initiative process even harder in the future always claim "too many initiatives."
If you doubt me, go to the National Conference of State Legislatures database of all ballot measures, and search for CA measures of all types in 2009. You'll see: http://www.ncsl.org/programs/leg...ect/
dbintro.htm
People interested in BETTER ballot initiatives, see http://Vote.org
Here is New Jersey we have an interesting system whereby the legislature controls most of the budget but certain things fall under executive discretion. So if the legislature is lame and can't balance the budget, the gov. can offset the shortfall by cutting executive discretionary funds. There are three major things that fall under this: prisons, health care and higher ed.
Care to guess which of these has been gutted in recent years?
In 2000 Rowan got >65% of its budget from the state.
In 2008 it was 32%.
But people don't blame the politicians for the rising cost of higher ed. They blame the universities.
I work with people who only want to manage employees who don't need to be managed. I've seen teachers who only want to teach the students who are bright enough to learn things themselves. I've met people in customer service who love everything about their job, except for dealing with the customers who actually need help. And, apparently, California is filled with representatives who don't want to represent anyone.
There are too many people in the world who want the gain without the pain, the glory without the guts, the better job without the job, the reward without the risk. It's OK to want these things... But it's not OK to expect that this is how life works. If you're not going to do the job when the job needs to be done, get out of the way.
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