Harter Off Her Rocker
By Alexander Marriott UNLV Rebel Yell: March 6, 2003

Our esteemed university president Carol Harter has told the Legislature they must pass the Governor's proposed tax increases or else the university will have to cap enrollments, and will leave the university "millions and millions of dollars behind."

As she wails away at how bad off the university will be unless the governor and legislature steal more money from people, she doesn't bother to look at anything within the university that can easily be done away with. Things that I've mentioned in previous articles like the College of Environmental Studies can be easily cut off as it provides no educational benefit (See my article entitled "Pfizer Unpfairly Attacked") and is simply a political outfit. All special interest group study programs can be done away with for similar reasons, and they are racist/sexist. This would include African-American Studies and Women's Studies. These should be done away with whether the budget is in jeopardy or not, it would be like having Men's Studies and White Studies departments, which of course are and would be called blatantly sexist and racist.

Another school that should be done away with is the College of Urban Affairs, which turns out bureaucrats like our vaunted university president who will lobby for higher taxes to pay for some alleged essential service in the future. There are already too many of these people, the last thing any of us needs is more of them.

Student government ought to be disbanded as they do very little for anyone they claim to represent. As a feat of their brilliance, they have recently voted to raise our student fees to pay for more "essential" student service and to renovate the MSU. What are they doing with their already ample budget? Who knows, and I frankly don't give a damn, they are only there for self-aggrandizement and the students are stuck subsidizing it.

As for the fiscal predicament of the university, perhaps Harter should look in the mirror. Is it the fault of businessmen that the university is "millions and millions of dollars behind" or is it the fault of smokers or drinkers or moviegoers? Or is it the fault of the people running the university? Is this a trend of people running UNLV? Guinn used to be president of UNLV as well, and look at the state budget right now.

Before any taxes are raised or created the legislature must look at spending. We are still paying grandparents to watch their grandchildren and Guinn is talking about cutting prisons and thus releasing prisoners. As long as they are non-violent drug offenders I don't care but that wasn't specified and he could be just as easily releasing real criminals. This is nutty. Until I see a concerted effort to cut spending (legislators are still submitting pork bills in Carson City) I will continue to oppose every tax increase. If the state cuts everything that falls out of its proper roll (protecting us from criminals and terrorists) and still needs money then I'll consider the idea of new taxation.

No one should accept the idea of taxation if there is no cause other than "the state needs money," because you know what? I need my money more.