I ran across this nifty quote in my travels today:
FiveBooks.com: Can you govern as a libertarian in America? You’ve got all these state government programs and you probably can’t get rid of a single one of them – or at least not more than one or two without a battle. Can you be a libertarian governor?
Mitch Daniels: I try to be. I mean, just to be simplistic about it, we believe that leaving the maximum number of dollars in the possession of those who earned them is an exercise in enlarging freedom.
I do this little game sometimes if I’m in a high school classroom. I walk around and ask innocently, ‘Does anyone have a dollar bill?’ – and some kid will produce one and I just stuff it in my pocket and walk on. After the consternation and the giggling stop, I say, ‘What, What?’ Then I go into a little rap and I say, ‘Oh, Jonathan wants his money back – notice that he is a dollar less free than he was a minute ago; if he had that dollar he could decide, he could choose [where and how to spend it]’.
Then I talk about how inevitably we have to coerce money out of people to do necessary and important public business. But if we believe in freedom and liberty than we ought to do that only for necessary purposes.
Then I go on to talk about competence and the fact that it becomes an equally solemn duty to never misspend a dollar. Maybe that’s not the right response but when I’m asked about governing as a libertarian, I would say that’s one way I do it.
Now, I don’t think for a minute Mitch Daniels governs like a true Libertarian, but he’s the best we’ve got. If we had it our way, you probably wouldn’t even recognize America today — particularly in the realm of healthcare, public education and mass transit. You would still have those things, in most cases, but they would be approached from the standpoint of making them affordable for everyone, not just the elite few and not just giving handouts to the poorest few, either.
Lots of exciting news coming out of Marion County on the tax-front this morning.
In short, libraries and colleges are spending way too much money on useless administrators, and then they wonder where there money went. Oh, and IndyGo broke an axel wheel. And colleges are full of “mindless cheerleaders”.
In unanimously approving its $37.9 million budget Monday, the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library board of trustees also put in motion a shortfall appeal that — if approved — will increase some property taxes.
IndyGo, another agency dependent on property taxes, also adopted a 2011 budget Monday, and it, too, will pursue a shortfall appeal as expected.
If approved by the City-County Council, the appeals would bring in $1.8 million for the library and $1.5 million for IndyGo. But for most homeowners, the increase combined would be only a couple of bucks.
I know it’s only a couple of bucks, but these problems aren’t going away and it defeats the purpose of a cap if you can just walk back to the council and say, “More please!”. They’re already talking about doing it again next year, just because they can. I was at the Irvington Library yesterday and it was mostly kids talking in circles and adults looking at Facebook and YouTube. Abdul over at RTV6 noticed the same thing. That can happen at a Starbucks. Libraries need to be rethinking their purpose in the 21st century. And why did they cut hours and services BEFORE looking at the problem they knew they had…
With one in four library employees in management positions, Torres called for eliminating high-paying, duplicate jobs to avoid reducing the library’s customer services.
“There is a need for discussion,” he said. “It’s a mess.”
I see no need for discussion. You’re top-heavy. Cut it out.
And, in further proof why this man is my hero, Gov. Daniels told Indiana’s public universities, namely IU and Purdue, they were acting like “mindless cheerleaders“:
Gov. Mitch Daniels told a large group of college trustees Monday that the days of top-heavy campuses — where administrators get the biggest slice of the budget pie — must come to an end.
…
“You are not there to be a mindless cheerleader,” the governor said. “Administrative costs are rising rapidly, and that is a lopsided way to deliver resources.”
The study blamed the administrative bloat on subsidies from federal and state governments and suggested that reducing subsidies would force schools to operate more efficiently.
“The role of trustee has never been so critical as it is today,” Daniels said. “But I don’t want to see you at the Statehouse asking for more money.
“Please stay back at the school and find ways to be more efficient with those dollars.”
Again, like most things in life, this is not that hard. Any sane organization or company could fix these problems in an afternoon.
It’s not been more than two hours since the airing of tonight’s “Next Food Network Star”, and we’ve already been graced with this from Tom’s “Bacon Steak”. While I like Tom, this is just funny at his expense. Kudos to the Food Network boom mic operator who got this sound:
Indiana University president Michael McRobbie will visit the IUPUI campus later today to announce two grants awarded to the Global Research Network Operations Center based in Indianapolis.
According to a news release, the money will enhance international network services that encourage scientists from around the globe to work together on projects. University spokesman Larry MacIntyre said the “multi-million-dollar” grants are funded by the National Science Foundation.
How wonderful. I’m sure this’ll fix everything.
Universities are like businesses, except they’re public and shielded from all the bad things about being a business. Likewise, they’re public entities and shielded from all the bad stuff about being a public entity. They live in the best of both worlds, without any of the bad. That’s a problem.
Universities, like businesses, want and have to raise money. Unfortunately, they tend do this by charging tuition, collecting donations, generating revenue AND collecting tax revenue. They’re worse than GM!
Annual operating budget of $1.2 billion. The city of Indianapolis operates off of a budget just under a billion. Why does a university of 30,000 require more money to operate than an entire city of nearly a million?
Average ’08 Freshman SAT score: 1,064. Too bad schools routinely exclude large groups of minority and “special admit” students like athletes or foreign students with English as a second language from these scores because they have the nasty habit of bringing down the average.
Being an “engaged” campus and all, one would expect that more than a measly 19% of undergrads would be studying abroad or taking part in service leaning. Actually, since all freshmen are required to take service learning to boost that useless stat, it’s more like 10%.
The average student/faculty ratio is 19:1. Too bad that includes hundreds of faculty members who do nothing but research all day (on what no one knows) and never even see or talk to undergrads.
Over 90% of full-time faculty have advanced degrees, like a PhD. Probably because you won’t let but a handful of people become full-time anyway. Leaving the grunt work of real teaching to adjunct faculty, who suffer day-in and day-out, with no way to advance. Whoops!
Lots of great faculty! Wee! Like this guy, who I don’t believe even teaches anything. Or at least, nothing worth, you know, mentioning in his bio.
All that research and yet, no way to know how effective they really are at the business of educating Hoosiers. Unless you look at this chart, which I guess shows a graduation rate of what? 35%? No one bothered to put some axis labels on it. That’s over six years, too. Wonder what the iconic four-year rate looks like.
IU sure is cutting back. What with them looking for $59 million in cuts to make, I don’t know how they sleep at night cutting all of 5% from an entire STATE NETWORK of schools. Even if IUPUI cut 5% of it’s $1B budget, that wouldn’t be enough to cry about. I’d tell you how much IU as a system controls in its budget, but, uh, they don’t publish that and have nothing but a broken link and password-protected pages.
All of this BS makes me hoppin’ mad. And don’t give me that, “But Justin, college grads make hundreds of thousands of dollars more in a lifetime than non-college grad” bull crap. Ever think that maybe the reason some people make more money than others is because they’re more ambitious, creative and desiring of a better lifestyle? Ambitious people tend to do ambitious things and school tends to fall into that. They’re a few others that would agree. The social aspect is bunk, too. Everyone knows at a school like IUPUI, no one socializes. Heck, even their own website says a little over a thousand students live on campus. There are more homeless people living under the overpass by campus than that.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the undergraduate degree is overrated. Especially when schools keep herding hundreds of students into programs like art and journalism, which have virtually no chances of ever being remotely profitable. If each school in the nation turned out 500 journalism grads, on average, each year, how many journalism jobs do you think there are in this country? Not enough, that’s for sure. What a bunch of liars.
Colleges and universities should report accurate statistics on who graduates from their programs, with what amount of debt and what they ultimately end up doing. That way when an art history major walks in the door, they know their chances of sweeping up shit at the zoo in 4 (or 6) years are 50/50.
This incessant need to research stuff is fine, but it had better bring results. What kind of an enterprise just gets to keep throwing money at problems that no one benefits from or had a problem to begin with anyway?
People who are teaching had better be damned passionate about what they teach and happen to enjoy teaching, to boot. No more grad students teaching intro courses. No more faculty members who like to study the mating habits of African dung beetles and nothing else forced to teach basic Bio 101. Competent adults, a desire to teach. Period. And lighten up on your lectures. Everyone knows people only retain about 10-20% of what they hear. You just keep talking because it’s darn cheap to yap at a room full of glazed eyeballs all day.
Stop raising tuition rates when you’re hiding behind millions, sometimes billions, in endowment money. If your amount of savings exceeds 10% of your annual operating budget each year, you have too much saved up for a public institution. Either spend it on a building project and pay for all of it in cash (no more tax and cost-spreading bonds) or immediately lower tuition rates. You’re a public entity — you don’t get to have profits beyond 10% of your budget.
Maybe then, and only then, can we start talking about real educational success in this country.
NPR’s Car Talk had a caller this weekend from Mishawaka, Indiana, who claimed to have a van that produced a noxious smell “worthy of germ warfare”.
In trying to figure out the problem, the Car Talk guys, Click and Clack, had the following exchange:
Click: “Do you guys have emissions testing in Indiana or don’t you care about the environment?” Caller: “No, we don’t do emission testing in Indiana.” Clack: “No, they just pull their car into a farm yard and count how many hogs keel over.” Click: “So this is like a 10-hogger?” Clack: “And then they give you a little windshield sticker that says, “10 Hogs”, don’t they?” Clack: “Well. There goes a state!”
Good stuff. You can listen to it online for the rest of the week. It’s segment 9.
I’ve long believed that the 4-way stop is proof that we as humans are capable of being rational, patient and friendly. Especially when the intersection in question is actually a malfunctioning stoplight that defaults to red. Everyone knows what to do, everyone is vigilant, patient and seemingly nice.
Then, the other day I was out driving and came across a malfunctioning stoplight and all hell broke loose. No one was moving, and when they did move, they all moved at once from all directions. People were visibly frustrated and I wouldn’t doubt if some of the weaker drivers just sat there and cried.
If the 4-way stop can’t work in this society anymore, we’re screwed.
An Indiana man who says he dreamed two years ago of a bearded man slaying Osama bin Laden has given a painting of the dramatic scene to a Colorado man arrested in Pakistan while hunting for the al-Qaida leader.
Jerry Cool, 63, told The Star Press of Muncie that he was “shocked” when he saw Gary Faulkner talking on CBS’s “Late Show With David Letterman” on June 28 about his arrest in northern Pakistan earlier that month.
“Once I saw Gary on TV, I knew that was him in my vision,” Cool told the newspaper. “To me, he’s the only one that deserves that painting.”
Faulkner, a bearded, 52-year-old unemployed construction worker from Greeley, Colo., says he traveled to Pakistan to kill bin Laden. He was carrying a pistol, a sword and night-vision goggles when detained in mid-June near the border with Afghanistan.
Cool, who has a beard himself, said that in 2008, he dreamed of a “man with gray hair and a dark beard” killing the al-Qaida leader, and that he committed the scene to canvas.
What a conversation that must have been with his family. I imagine it like this:
Faulkner: “Honey, I’m off to capture Bin Laden!”
Wife: “Don’t forget your pistol, dear.”
Wouldn’t it have been a real hoot if this guy finds and captures Bin Laden and does what the entire US Military has been trying to do for a decade?
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