Townhall with Klaich

Originally posted in a LVRJ forum

Nobody asks Klaich the obvious questions:

1. Why do you deserve to be paid >twice what we pay Gibbons?
2. Why do you pay Division 1 sports coaches as much as their professional league peer group?
3. What happened to all that trust money (granted in 1868) which was set aside to perpetually fund UNR departments of Mining, Agriculture and Engineeering?
4. Why do you continue to fund JUNK departments like "University Studies" which only serve to provide academic cover to jocks?
5. What percentage of your football and basketball players ever graduate? [it's significantly < non-athletes]
6. How much do your sports marketing partners -- t-shirts, posters, TV, etc -- make off your teams?
7. Why do you fund a law school? Are there too few laws and lawyers in this state?
8. Why are so many NSHE buildings named after Senator Raggio?
9. Why do you pay clinical professors $400K? Do they use our resources to support their private medical practices?
10. Your course catalogs describe NSHE's mission in very grandiose, pompous terms. Do you even *know* what NSHE's mission is supposed to be?
11. How many of your employees are related by family or marriage to state legisators?
12. How much money does NSHE spend on lobbyists?

Tick tick. I'm waiting.

RINOs Looking Out For Us

Originally posted in a LVRJ Forum

Deputy Chief of Staff Lynn Hettrick said they're working on what they can do

If memory serves, Hettrick was one of those RINO legislators who voted FOR uberRINO Gov Guinn's HUGE tax increase. Hettrick is Raggio's long lost identical twin brother.

No more mining taxes. No mucking around with industry tax rules. I do not own shares in mining companies. I oppose BIG government and the high taxes necessary to fund it. If we had small government in this state, *existing* mining taxes plus ~3 wks of sales taxes would cover the biennial budget.

Nevada System of Higher Waste

Originally posted in a LVRJ Forum

This demagogue Klaich is too much. The Univ of NV was established as sort of a public charity. Mining, Engineering, and Agriculture students were meant to be the "beneficiaries"; FREE (or nominal) TUITION. Yep.

Well *that* modest mission could not stand! The applied science students now have to pay full fee. Can't discriminate against liberal arts students (who had NO place in the original university). Welcome to the "new" UNV charity:

• Klaich ($335K)
• UNR Pres Glick ($435K)
• UNLV Pres Smatresk ($300K); other top officials slightly less
• new UNLV Head Football Coach Hauck ($450K); his assistants $125K
• new Athletic Director Livengood ($300K)
• Head Basketball Coach Kruger ($1M); his assistants $125K
• Clinical professors ($400K)
• unionized Basketweaving professors -- some of whom are related to Legislators ($80K)
• JOCKS get free rides.

The public sector is NOT supposed to be a place to get rich. Taxpayers might have other priorities for their money -- like making THEMSELVES rich. NSHE receives federal funding. Where's Obama's Pay Czar when you need him?

Make the UNV a small A&M (+mining) school once again. Those students pay NOTHING. No more Division 1 sports. Teams can be recruited from the >2m tall applied science majors. Coaches from their faculty; assistants their grad students. No more athletic scholarships. No more liberal arts, or at least make THEM pay full (user) fee. $800/credit sounds right. No more research-driven (politically funded) faculty. Research is an uncertain activity best left to the private sector. No more expensive career professors. If need be recruit emeritus professors who have retired here to work for token honoria. Teaching the next generation is sort of a sacred duty which Phd's took upon themselves the moment they accepted their Black Belts.

No more GM pay scale university administrators.

Oh, No! Higher Tuition Will Put a College Education Out of Reach ..

Originally posted in a LVRJ Forum

Are you implying that higher education should only be for the rich?

Egalitarianism. Here we go again. Public education is a *political* institution.

When you look at the annual cost of attending notable public universities like Cal (>$10,000 in-state) and Michigan (~$6,000 in-state) you must conclude that public colleges are quickly becoming entitlement programs for the wealthy. That's just undergrad. The professional schools are completely BANANAS.

It shouldn't matter to anyone (except busybodies) whether good students leave this state. Mobility ISO better opportunities is what built this country.

Klaich: Turn Corn Fields Into Football Fields

Originally posted in a LVRJ Forum

Close the .. agricultural experiment station at UNR.

ALL the options are attractive, through the Agricultural Research station is probably the ONLY item on Klaich's list which actually *furthers* the original purpose (politics aside) of UNR as a land grant institution (Morrill Act). The rest are completely POLITICAL expenditures, designed to pump money into Districts other than Raggio's (UNR).

First on the list for elimination should be Division 1 sports. You can always field teams from the ranks of the applied science majors. Put the student back in "student"-athlete. Dump the $1M/yr basketball coach, and the newly acquired $450K/yr football coach and $300K AD.

What Crisis?

Originally posted in a LVRJ Forum

The biennial budget -- K-16, mental hospitals, prisons, 3 branches, etc -- represents only ~1/3 of state government spending.

One third.

The FY '10/'11 (biennial) budget is ~$3.4B/yr. Therefore, TOTAL state appropriations -- including roads and Nevada spending reimbursed by the Federal government -- are actually ~$10B/yr.

$10,000,000,000 per year.

Current revenues are ~$2.4B/yr. About $1B/yr less than what the Republicrats schemed but still impressive by historical measure. That was FY05's record-high tax haul.

The point is, using the same 2:1 ratio, total state appropriations are still ~$7.2B/yr and likely HIGHER. The federal government must have granted us all sorts of matching fund indulgences.

Some crisis.

Small Government Manifesto

Originally posted in a LVRJ Forum

I oppose BIG government and the high taxes necessary to pay for it. If we had small government in this state, the biennial budget could be set as low as $80M/yr. Existing mining taxes and ~3 weeks of sales taxes would cover it. That's right.

The Nevada Constitution REQUIRES that the State fund:

1. The 3 Branches. A small government legislature would only need to meet 1 wk per 2 yrs. Token honoraria; no PERS. ($50K)
2. One public school/district (18 statewide). $125K/school. (~$2M).
3. Prisons and juvie. Budget opaque. Too many non-violents in jail. Release them.
4. A militia. One CO ($50K); the rest Reserves.
5. Institutions for mental patients and handicapped. Budget opaque. Could probably be cut by 80%.
6. Three endowed UNR departments (Mining, Agriculture, and Engineering). Tuition pays for everything else. ($0).
7. Assorted bureaucracies like AG, Sec of State, State Superintendent, etc. (<$10M)

That's all. The legislature could simply vote everything else out of existence. Bye bye NSHE dunderhead jocks, junk depts, NFL/NBA/MLB-pay scale coaches, GM executive pay scale campus officials, etc. Bye bye $400K mental hospital shrinks and prison doctors. Bye bye Dairy Commission, Taxicab Authority, and dozens of other ridiculous bureaucracies.

Bye bye Rulffes and his *catastrophic* CCSD. No more sinecures for DEM union members and lucrative contracts for GOP service firms. No more left wing indoctrination of "tolerance". No more right wing indoctrination of "abstinence". No more RD-certified junk food in cafeteria, and Phd-certified junk science texts in classrooms.

Tax revenues are currently running ~$2.4B/yr. The legislature spends ~ALL of it on pork. Send us REBATE checks instead. ~$1,000 per resident. Either that or eliminate business taxes, gaming taxes, entertainment taxes, etc.