In news that can't be interpreted independently of my arrival just a few short months ago, Georgia is the latest state to reach budgetary armaggedon. Having already gotten $265 million in rather draconian cuts out of the state university system, the state legislature yelled "Surprise!" and flying drop-kicked us in the nuts by demanding $300 million more. Just to be clear, that's over half a billion in cuts from higher education in a state that is one city away from being Mississippi. This is going to necessitate closing entire campuses, eliminating entire departments, and firing tenured faculty – not to mention jacking up tuition, although part of the problem is that half of our students aren't paying anything anyway (why make white people in the suburbs pay tuition when we can send their kids to college for free with money taken from poor people?)
The last round of cuts hurt, bringing furloughs, layoffs, and paycuts. This round will be fatal, especially for people like me who are untenured and easy to fire. These decisions are always made with the maximum of highly public hand-wringing and boilerplate monologues about how we had to "make some really tough choices" (the judges would also accept "tightening our belts" or "making sacrifices" for full credit).
This is at best a serious misrepresentation of the political choices being made and at worst, not to mention more likely, it is a bald-faced lie. There is nothing remotely "tough" about the choices Georgia and the other states in similar financial predicaments are making.
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This is, by any reasonable understanding of the motives and incentives of elected legislators, the easy way out. Raising taxes would be a tough choice. Making in-state students pay tuition (or at least pay a few tax dollars into HOPE rather than funding it solely out of the Lotto) would be tough.
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Cutting money-losing athletic departments from universities would be almost suicidal in this state.
The state legislature is doing none of these things; they barely have the balls to whisper them in private let alone propose or vote on them. Instead they choose to beat up on the schools, gut public transportation, and eliminate services that mostly benefit the poor. In the context of modern American politics this is the very definition of the easy way out.
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Aside from disagreeing with this course of action ideologically and politically, I resent the phony emotional agony with which our elected officials make such easy and expedient decisions. What I would like to hear is one legislator saying "Hey, in this hillbilly backwater we don't dare touch taxes.
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But our dedicated base of rubes will be perfectly happy to see us hack away at fancy book learnin' and the buses that poor Negroes use in Atlanta." It makes no difference in the practical outcome, of course, but I prefer to hear some honest commentary while I'm getting fucked.
Chauncey Baker says:
Ed,
Completely off topic, but have you ever gotten one of these:
My daughter XXX put her trust in you 3 1/2 years ago when she set out to get her Doctorate Degree. In this 3 1/2 years XXX accomplished all XXX University requirements to earn her Masters Degree. XXX needed your help to accomplish these goals. After finding out how much longer she was going to have to attend XXX to accomplish her original goal of Doctorate, caused by your lack of dedication to your students, XXX decided she would be happy with her Masters. Is it your intention to squash your student's goals because of your own inadequacy? XXX had worked so hard to accomplish her goal, just to have it wasted by a vengeful professor. You are an embarrassment to this fine institution and why the head of the XXX Dept can't help her is also a mystery. XXX needed your help and you let her down. I hope you're proud! You don't deserve to go on as a Professor at XXX University or any other University for that matter, without dedicating yourself to the STUDENTS!
Although we are in completely different fields of research, we are at similar levels academically, this was my first "angry parent". It shocked me at first because a complete stranger would say this to me. But, it also shocked me because it was a person I had worked with for 3 years, and felt I knew pretty well. And then, well…Angry Parent. I've decided to finally become vengeful here:
http://ihardlyevenknowher.blogspot.com/
by making available the writing that a Master's degree student (who is essentially flunking out of a PhD program) submitted to me for her thesis (disclaimer, the identifier of 'her' is only made public because her asshole father decided to do so). I had always thought I would relish the moment I got one of these "lessons" from a parent, yet I find it strangely dissatisfying. I feel like, as an educator, I somehow let this student down.
Strange how the world works. I do not take kindly to insult.
Poor Fuckers!
Ursula says:
The public display of the thesis is more than is necessary. Take it down and send it directly to the parent, complete with your comments about why the student failed.
jon says:
The State of Arizona is in a similar budget crunch, but our state has the benefit of not having a legislature that can agree on anything with our governor. So things are both better, more nebulous, and more likely to be as devastating as Georgia all in one. We've gutted all the low-hanging fruit (poor, the minorities–fruit is a bad metaphor, but these are unfortunate days again–and their health and education,) but are still unable to face the reality that taxes might not be able to be reduced. That's right, our legislature thinks that taxes should be reduced to balance the budget rather than maybe possible perhaps increased to cover essential services.
Our governor had to fight tooth and nail to get a one-cent sales tax increase onto the ballot for the people to give an up-or-down vote, while her primary opponents think reducing the business tax will bring in the jobs.
But our state did okay sparklers, so I guess everything's fine in freedomland.
FMguru says:
California is in the same straits – another year, another uncloseable mutli-billion dollar hole in the budget, and taxes are completely off the table (thanks, Prop 13!). So it's another round of firings and furloughs and closings for the school system, both college and K-12. I'm real excited to see what California's labor pool looks like ten or twenty years from now once we get done gutting the school systems. I guess our corporate elite decided that having an educated workforce would be an unnecessary expense that would only get in the way of their plan to outsource all jobs that pay more than $9/hour with no benefits.
AG says:
Ed, I will just copy and paste my comment from my meta-blog: "Most concise commentary I've read on the various states' education cuts in the last year during this recession. Bloomingtonians, I bet, can relate to this thanks to similarly disgusting ways of our beloved governor." …
I live in Bloomington, your former town, and have been disgusted by cuts including primary school funding cuts in recent times while the Daniels' tax cuts still keep the ultra rich mansion owners in Caramel, and other rich suburbs happy.
John says:
But you forget, Ed, our great city Atlanta is home to King Boortz, and if he gets even the slightest whiff of a tax hike, any legislator who wasn't publicly relieving himself on the bill will be excoriated hourly on AM750, which basically all of the state had their radios set to before tearing off the knob.
And he doesn't particularly mind the cuts to our university system in an already (relatively) retarded state — to his ideology, it's just more opportunity for private schools to start getting state subsidies so that our tax dollars can go to support affluent white kids and educators, rather than those peons that go to public universities like Tech and State.
ladiesbane says:
Perhaps it's time to combine your job and your side gig here: write for the paper. I mean it. You understand the problem, and you understand why the proposed solution will cause more harm than good, and you can write clearly. Educating the young may pay off ten years from now, but there are loads of adults in your town who need to hear what you say: this won't work and here's why.
Another option is to run for office. Not to be glib, but I'd vote for you.
Dominic says:
I would vote for Ed in a second! Gin and tacos for everyone!
On a more serious note, we're starting to feel your pain here in Louisiana. Our hacks in office cut taxes, and then said, oh no, there's a shortfall, there's not enough money for everything! At LSU, two interdepartmental programs (which cost nothing or next to it) have been closed down, and the English Dept's instructors (non-professorial faculty, who teach a lot of freshman comp) are all going to be laid off unless something changes. In the last year the university has had $43 million cut and still more is going to be cut–a lot, but much less than Georgia.
Best of luck riding out this storm. (And jokes aside, I would vote for you.)
Patti says:
Fortunately, now is tax time – and while I don't *like* forking over a couple thousand dollars for anything, if you really look at the amount you are paying per person, it's amazing government has any money to do anything. I'm almost embarrassed at how little we spend in taxes – but I also like to pay soldiers a living wage, and have meat inspected, and have bridges repaired before they collapse. I want to throttle Tea Partiers for their Taxed Enough Already rhetoric – WE AREN'T! We benefit from taxes! Why do you hate America?
As for the states and higher education, we need to have a serious discussion in this country about why we have public schools and universities. I was under the impression that we want an educated electorate, so government funds schools because the collective benefits. It's moving to the model that schools help the individual earn more money. If that is the sole reason for education- increased earning power – then maybe states shouldn't fund schools at all. Let's embrace a system where school teachers earn $25K per year and have 150K in student loans! Hizzah! It's a race to the bottom!
SeaTea says:
The Civil-War-era phrase "grinding the seed corn of the nation" comes to mind. When you cut education you're cutting the only real chance any of us have to get the fuck out of this mess eventually. We need as many smart, educated young people as possible so that someone can come up with the "Next Big Thing" that is going to rescue our economy. A nation of uneducated kids isn't going to do it.
VALIS says:
If my experience teaching in the California State University system is any indication, what happens next is your most privileged students will decide they've had enough and will protest the cuts by 'occupying' a building on campus (most likely the class where Business classes are held). Inevitably this will lead to the mouthbreather voters in your state losing any sympathy they might have had for students. ("I'm not paying for them to learn to be CRIMINALS!"). Also, it will be decided by most of the students that the faculty 'doesn't care about their students' because the teachers don't really want their already-shortened semesters disrupted further by a bunch of oppressed students with blow horns screaming that 'education should be free.' So, you have something to look forward to…
BTW I teach Freshmen English as a lecturer and have not be laid off yet, but most of the other lecturers on campus have…
Kulkuri says:
What's ironic is that GA has one of the lowest tax rates(other than sales tax, but everyone knows that sales taxes hurt the poor more than the rich) in the country, but like you said raising taxes is the third rail in politics. Property taxes are very low compared to other areas and still people bitch about how high they are.
Did you know if you buy a new car you can take the sales tax off on your income tax?? You subtract it from your taxable income and reduce both federal and state income tax. I'm sure there are other things that work the same way.
Duverger's outlaw says:
Similar things are happening elsewhere in the world too: exhibit (a) England.
http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2010/03/the-paleographers-and-the-managers-a-tale-of-modern-times.html
Ed, do you know if the managers in charge of implementing cuts are making out like bandits as in England?
Bobby Flashpants says:
I was talking with a conservative friend the other day, who is a school board member in a north Georgia county. He was decrying the massive cutbacks in state funding that his county is receiving, and very proud of the fact that the county went ahead and ponied up an extra 90K to cover one of the furlough days for the entire county school staff, which is pretty awesome of them. Yet not 10 minutes later, we got into it on healthcare reform, with him parroting the usual RW talking points, and basically accusing my brother and I and lefties in general of not being bootstrappy enough. I think's indicative of many Georgians in that they are, deep down, decent human beings, but can't get past the TAXES AND LIBRULS AND ATLANTA is EVIL stuff.
Of course, I also got notified yesterday that my Cobb county property taxes were going up by $400 this year. I'm trying really hard to see it as a positive thing.
moonbat says:
At some point, a tipping point will be reached. Not in Georgia perhaps, maybe it will start in a progressive state like California, hopefully at the national level.
At some point, someone is going to point out the obvious, that we are spending buckos out the bazoo to keep our world empire going, while everyone at home is broke, sick and out of work. Recall Obama's pronouncement a weeks ago about a domestic spending freeze (meaning, the military still has carte blanche). This was done to stave off the deficit hawks, who turn a blind eye toward the fact that our military budget is larger than the next ten countries combined.
The military has become a third rail subject in the USA – soldiers are glorified these days, and one dare not speak about cutbacks. It's really the main thing this country presently going for it to feel good about itself – sadly. This is the last stage of empire – the military devourng all civilian resources, including our childrens' futures (as represented by educational investment). But with enough pain at home, someone is going to start speaking up about this.
Given that this is the reality across the board – ie legislators of every state making easy choices, and thereby tossing lots of teachers out onto the street, what are your plans? I have a number of bright friends who had promising early careers in academe, who at some point early on, got the ax, usually due to some minor economic recession. Many of them became "freeway flyers" – doing part time work all over town, a few migrated to more permanent work outside or adjacent to the university. I've seen this pattern countless times, but with the magnitude of the economic crisis we're now it, many more folks are going to be hit.
Julie says:
@VALIS
Are you referring to the protests at UCSC? I'm not sure if they went about that the best way they could, but I give them kudos for doing something, I guess.
I think this post goes along well with another you wrote recently about the national debt. Americans are used to having things they can't afford, so the idea of actually paying for them is never popular. But the only real commodity we have left is higher education, so it seems like all signs are pointing toward some catastrophic economic collapse.
Desargues says:
An effective way to counter all this shit would be massive strikes, like they do in Europe. Labor is still organized back there — that's why corporations and governments have only limited ways to fuck them over. But here they have all these misguided ideas about "individualism" and "free markets." Add to that four decades of relentless anti-labor propaganda, the de facto governance by a single party with two right wings, and you end up with an impotent populace increasingly squeezed out of a decent future wringing their hands over the "value of education."
Pleading and arguing is not going to move these motherfuckers. Industrial action will. Let all the schools in the UGA system go on strike for a month or so, and everybody in government will relent. But, of course, nobody talks about that here. It's America — we don't strike; we just bend over, take it up the ass, and mumble something about our children's future. Land of the free, baby.
jazzbumpa says:
I don't think it's an accident that education is being hit. Here in MI, it's right to the grade school level. Modern right wingers hate education – anyone who knows how to think is not going to be swayed by Rush and Fox noise.
My property tax just went down 20% after going down by a least 10% last year, due to plunging property values. Municipalities and states are going to go bankrupt.
There is another wave of foreclosures on the horizon when the option-ARMS buzzards come to roost.
Honest to moloch, I do not see the faintest ray of hope, anywhere.
WASF,
JzB
Entomologista says:
Chauncey – If I were you I'd take that blog down before your colleagues find it and you get fired.
VALIS says:
@Julie,
Yes, students in both the UC and CSU systems here in California have taken to occupation as a form of protest. The problem I have with this is that it doesn't improve anything: teachers resent the occupations, the students seem more interested in protesting than improving their conditions, and it chips away any sympathy voters might have for students. Another problem in California is that there have been significant cuts to programs like domestic violence shelters *(which were CUT BY 75% in the last round of budget shenanigans). Students who fail to recognize that their hardships are just a small part of the problems caused by the cuts are unsympathetic. And the amazing thing is these same students will complain ceaselessly that America's 'taxes are too high."
moonbat says:
I'm sympathetic with the UC/CSU protestors, but feel their energies are misdirected. They need to march on the state capital, not the administration building.
Joe says:
I may be accused of being a conservative troll for saying this, but the tea-baggers are right about being "taxed enough already". We are taxed enough. Actually I'd say most of us are taxed about just right. The problem is that we blow hundreds of billions of dollars a year on things like the military industrial complex and it's horseshit wars, the completely useless health insurance industry, fighting a useless war on drugs, the department of homeland security, and so on.
We can't have our cake and eat it too. We can't just raise taxes to fund the things we like. We have to spot spending money we've ALREADY been taxed on bullshit.
Zeb says:
Beyond cutting military spending (which absolutely needs to be done), we may need to raise the retirement age as well. I hate to say it, but as the boomers start retiring, entitlements alone will sink us if we don't address them in some way. Raising the retirement age seems the most plausible, and least egregious course of action, unless someone can think of something better.
ts46064 says:
@joe
I agree that we spend way too much on defense but on the issue of being taxed too much i have to disagree. We have some of the lowest tax rates in the industrialized world.
Now, if we were to trim our defense budget we would get more for our tax dollars which may negate any need for a tax increase or require a smaller increase.
Desargues says:
Cutting down on the "defense" budget may actually produce enough federal tax dollars to either address shortcomings in funding for education, infrastructure, and health, or tax people less, and allow states to tax them more — so that more tax dollars goes directly to local projects that help people, instead of keeping the House of Saud safe from its own people.
Nathan says:
Up north in SidneyCrosbystan, we await the new federal budget with a kind of resigned whimper. The opposition has been shouting for months about how irresponsible the Conservatives are with taxpayers' money, having turned a surplus into a massive deficit in a few short years (sound familiar?). And so now, the Cons will respond, reluctantly, with the slash-and-burn cuts to everything except defence that they've been wanting to do for decades, and that many of the same people did a decade ago on a smaller scale in Ontario.
Everything will be gutted, but those corporate tax cuts, and all the other massive tax cuts they introduced, no, those must stay, for pity's sake.
Cartmanne says:
I think you are giving Mississippi way too much credit.
Robert says:
Here in California, we've been hearing nonstop radio ads from Meg 'Ebay' Whitman for weeks now. Apparently, the problem of the state government not having enough money will be solved by – ready? – cutting taxes.
I'm starting to _hope_ that 12/21/12 turns out to be the end of time.
jeneria says:
Two years ago, I interviewed for a TT job at Georgia Southwestern State University in Americus, GA. One of the red flags that they kept waving was that they were considering going to a four day school week due to budget cuts. I decided that I didn't want to be in that kind of situation and took a non-TT job in the midwest. Some of my friends thought I was crazy for passing up tenure, but I do not regret my decision at all.
Americus is a super cute town, but it is literally in BFG.
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