BRANDON SACK, Speaking Out
As UF waves goodbye to $69 million and a small army of faculty and staff, perhaps you are asking yourself, "Why do we have to give up so much anyway?" Is it the faltering economy? Partly. But the most likely answer is tax cuts.
Every couple of years, we hear the same tired speeches from politicians. They are going to cut taxes, save us money and give us free ice cream every Wednesday afternoon to help us get through the week.
The problem with that logic is, without any tax revenue, the state can't afford ice cream.
One thing we must understand is that tax cuts mean service cuts, and the first service to be placed on the chopping block is higher education.
Cutting taxes during an "economic slowdown" while waging a couple of wars, tends to result in less money for things like books, teachers' salaries, health care and cancer research. Yet year after year, we keep cutting taxes. What's that old definition of insanity?
But why would any responsible public official continually subject us to such a disaster? Easy. It wins elections and doesn't really affect them much.
Unlike many of our "representatives," most of us are not old, white millionaires. This means when we get a few hundred bucks in tax breaks, they get tens of thousands. When funding for our public schools gets cut, they send their kids to better private schools. When UF's funding gets cut, their kids go to an Ivy League school.
The problem comes right back to Tigert Hall.
While our professors' salaries and jobs get cut, we suffer from tuition hikes, enrollment decreases, spurious non-Bright-Futures-covered fees and program closures, President Bernie Machen receives a $300,000 bonus.
With that $300,000, we could have saved at least five associate professors for at least a year. If Machen was enduring what many of our peers, faculty and staff are going through, perhaps he would more readily criticize our elected officials for neglecting one of our state treasures: Florida's public university system.
Rather than being diplomatic, Machen should publicly decry the Legislature's lack of commitment to their constituents.
But instead of challenging the Legislature, Machen hired Sen. Mike Haridopolos, who holds no advanced degree and who was instrumental in passing Amendment 1 - the inequitable property tax cut that serves to deplete state and local government funding for education.
This wouldn't be so bad if Haridopolos wasn't getting paid $75,000 a year for part-time work. Way to build morale at a time when we are firing well-qualified professors across the board, Bernie.
So what can we do about this other than complain? Write your state and federal representatives, your local officials, even your mom, and tell them you are not going to take tax breaks for the wealthy at the expense of education. Hell, even get out there and protest a bit. But even more importantly, come November, remember these budget woes, and don't vote just because someone promises you an extra $20 a month. Vote for someone who promises fundamental reforms that put education, health care and the average Floridian first.
Brandon Sack is a biomedical sciences Ph.D. candidate.
