The UC Regents Did The Right Thing

by Justin La Grange

The UC Regents made the right decision in approving the 32% fee hike, a necessary move to protect the integrity of the university system amidst massive budget shortfalls and reflective of the real market realities for an education of the UC System's caliber, specifically for UCLA and UC Berkeley. In fact, there are next to zero similar institutions in the world that offer Berkeley's quality of education at the post-fee raise price.

Despite elitist Berkeley and UCLA students snootily declaring themselves more "educated" and "aware" of the world around them than the common folk, the Regents and common folk happen to be grounded in practical and economic reality. Meanwhile, the spoonfed socialists at Berkeley are under the assumption that money to fund their high caliber education is just magically pulled out of thin air.

So what is the economic reality?

With the current fee structure (pre-32% increase), massive government funding, and ample donations, incoming revenue to fund the University's operations is not sufficient to cover costs.

In order to correct that imbalance, you are faced with three options: reduce operating costs, increase government funding, or increase the below market value tuition.

1. Reduce Operating Costs: As it is, the University's compensation for professors is well below market value and below that offered by many comparable institutions. If you continue to decrease that compensation as well as the compensation of other professionals at UC, you run the risk of losing more talent to other universities with better compensation, devaluing the quality of a UC Education. Where the UC System could reduce costs is by slashing their incompetent bureaucracy and overpaid unskilled labor -- but the UC system is a government system, after all. It's gonna be a cold day in hell when the bureaucracy is reduced, and hell on earth with the violent public sector unions if anybody tries. The ugly irony in that all this is the nutheads that complain and protest about their fee increases are likely to be the same ones who complain and protest about the unionized state gardner being compensated poorly at $25/hr with a hefty retirement package at 45 (also see attached article about Berkeley students protesting laid off janitors).
2. Increase Government Funding: In case you haven't noticed, the state of California is faced with the largest budget shortfall in its history, thanks to Democratic-liberalism run amok. The hallmark of liberalism, a massive scope of social programs with unproductive wildly overcompensated incompetent bureaucrats overseeing them, has finally catapulted California into a near state of bankruptcy. As a result, there is no state money left to be further alloted to UC. Try and cut another state program and move that funding to UC, and watch the fight the unions and interests of that cut program will put up. Of course the question becomes, "How about raising taxes?" When companies and high income earners are fleeing California at an alarming rate, you cannot afford to continue driving them away. The whole crux of conservative economic reasoning is that when you drive too many people away with massive taxes and regulation, you no longer have a tax base to draw from and the system collapses -- including the UC System.
3. Increase Below Market Value Tuition: As it stands, the 32% higher tuition is far below the market value of the education provided. Assuming the raise would make a Berkeley (or UC) education unsustainable for at most 1-5% of prospective students, just slot the next 1-5% on the admissions/waiting list in. It's the price the system has to pay to preserve quality and not reach a state of utter financial collapse. To note, there are folks that would pay $100K a year for their kids to go to Berkeley and donate a building on top of that. Yes, that's the exception and not the rule, but $7,500/year versus $10,000/year is not really going to break anybody's back. Will the loans become larger and will you or your parents have to give up a little something more if finances are tight? Sure, but that's life. If you get into a car accident and pay $2500 more per year in insurance, will you go protest outside the insurance company? No, cause that's life. We live in the United States, where nothing is free and nobody is entitled to anything -- and coincidentally, we have the greatest standard of living and quality of life in the entire world among all social classes. Oh, the injustice! And in case you didn't figure it out, option three presented here is indeed the only feasible solution.

Despite overwhelming evidence that this fee raise needed to happen, economic reality is not something UC students are concerned with in their socialist utopia. I would ask them to step out of their bubble and furnish solutions to the massive UC budget crisis that does not involve raising their tuition. Let me tell you, there are few realistic ones that accomodate their leftist worldview. There is one tax I support however, and that is a 95% tax on left-wing activist celebrities to fund the UC System -- somehow, I have a feeling a lot more movies would be made in Louisiana.


Context Article from the AP:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9C3DOT00&show_article=1

Image Source:
http://laist.com/attachments/la_zach/ucprotests.jpg

The Obama Administration to Fox News: How Dare You Deliver Our Transparency For Us!

by Justin La Grange

November 4, 2008 -- the sun shone brighter that day. As the seas parted and the clouds opened, the long awaited delivery of our savior, the anointed one, was finally here. Rejoice! A new era of moderate open government and transparency had begun.

One year later...

We've all found that this saying is really true: "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

In what has been the most grotesque display of arm twisting vile backhandedness, the Obama Administration has mixed its far-left radical character with the forceful machinations of Chicago style politics to violently push through an unwanted agenda of an un-American nature by -- as Alinsky would describe -- any and all means necessary.

And in what is no exaggeration, Fox News is the guardian of your liberty during the Obama era. In what can be described as nothing short of corruption of the most epic proportions, Fox News is the only organization that is willing to take a critical look at the Obama Administration. That is beyond dangerous. How can anyone villify the only news media organization that dare ask questions? It is beyond comprehension, which is why, not coincidentally, Fox News has the audience of MSNBC, CNN, and HLN combined, and has occasionally beaten broadcast Katie Couric's CBS Headline News in the ratings.

One saw this coming -- no pun intended -- when Campbell Brown could barely compose herself during the Democratic primary debates or when photoshopped nude pictures of then Senator Obama were found on Keith Olbermann's bedroom wall.

The White House criticism of Fox News is outrageous. Fox News is a privately owned media organization that the White House has no business attacking, whereas The White House belongs to the people, not the Obama Administration, and therefore the people have a right to scrutinize it all they want. Instead of attacking the investigating organization, it is the responsibility of the people's house, The White House, to openly address those queries, not to have some half-witted cherubic fool making snide sarcastic "it's a war" like remarks in response.

And let's say Fox News is presenting a right-leaning opinion -- mostly on primetime -- on certain issues. So what? Are you interested in robust debate President Obama, or must you play the games of the Chicago style machine when it's more convenient to attack, dismantle, and falsely discredit your so-called opponent? Much like a five year old, it's apparently just easier to say that "you're wrong", instead of bothering to explain why your wrong, and hope enough folks are watching organizations like MSNBC and the Daily Kos to buy into the liberal cornfed stereotype.

In an era where the federal government is all too consumed with power, Fox News is the only organization that understands the role of the media is to be a ferocious watchdog, not a lapdog. Well, one can forgive Anderson Cooper, who really wants to be Obama's lapdog.

At least CNN is willing to admit it is such in what was a heroic triumph on the part of Campbell Brown in confronting the duplicitous and sniveling Valerie Jarrett who refused to call MSNBC a biased news organization while making those same pronouncements about Fox News. How convenient to not complain about fawning coverage and then complain bitterly when facts and sound reasoning are presented to controvert your ugly agenda. For example, the Obama Administration bitterly attacked Edmunds for their unbiased and completely logical report that stated the true taxpayer cost of each cash for clunker was $24,000 per turn in. The administration also attacks anyone of the opinion that the government can't run anything, which it factually can't -- if the government ran as a business, it would near immediately go out of business.

Oddly, the Obama Administration is willing to admit they're corrupt in strange overseas meetings, such as the one Anita Dunn had at a Dominican Republic government conference where she admitted the Obama strategy towards the media was to in essence "control" it as opposed to the press controlling it themselves. The administration/campaign would set the narrative and tone of the news, and the lapdog media would in essence run with how the White House put it out there. In the most clever and elegant ways, the mainstream media has this fabulous knack at building an agenda and skewing in a position in what sounds like hard news to the general public. Primetime at MSNBC is basically a regurgitation of White House press releases and a debutante ball of surrogate debaters for the Obama Administration (that's Keith Olbermann over there in the pink gown).

Meanwhile, let's discuss the administration's so called enemy territory. Glenn Beck has replaced Sean Hannity as enemy #1 and the White House has made no secret of it. As a consequence, Glenn Beck's ratings on his Fox News program have skyrocketed to unprecedented levels, and Obama-exposé marketshare is epically increasing. The Obama Administration is worried about certain stunning facts Glenn Beck presents, such as the government's new marketshare of control in the private economy (from the banking industry to the car industry to the student loan industry) or videos of his czars -- who are public stewards and have salaries payed by the taxpayer -- exhibiting radical behavior. As much as folks want to discredit Glenn Beck, he broke major major stories that the mainstream media flatly ignored, such as the radical videos of green jobs czar Van Jones, ultimately resulting in Jones' resignation after huge public outcry. And that outcry was not a result of any bias or any of Beck's opinions, but a result of Beck sitting pertly in his chair, consuming an ice cream sundae as he and the public watched undoctored videos of Jones making radical pronouncements that caused the public to ask why such a extremely far-left and dangerous person is serving in a capacity that represents, again, the people's house, not Barack Obama's house. In the outrage of the century, Jones had the audacity to say he was a victim of slander, which apparently was defined as having been slandered by having the slanderer simply play back videos of the slanderee. But back on point, Beck's breaking of these stories make him a hero in looking out for the mainstream public's interest by critically evaluating policy and policymakers in the Obama administration -- that is the media's job, and non-coincidently he is rewarded for doing that job by averaging an unprecedentedly large amount of viewers.

Yet while Fox News is not afraid to present contradicting opinons (to the White House), that's not to say that Fox is as biased as MSNBC. Fox is very balanced in its daytime programming, and even primetime is more balanced than MSNBC based on the hosts and percentage of commentators that offer contradicting opinions.

Contrary to popular opinion, The O'Reilly Factor is largely a balanced program. O'Reilly's opinions skew center-right, but nearly all the segments include an opposing commentator with whom O'Reilly has virile and robust debates. Mark Lamont Hill, Juan Williams, Rev. Sharpton (who regularly appears on Fox News), Alan Colmes, Phil Donahue, Medea Benjamin, Geraldo Rivera, Jane Fleming, and Robert Reich are just a few examples. He has also interviewed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, both of whom were surprisingly pleased with their fair treatment on the show. In contrast, Countdown with Keith Olbermann has next to 0 opposing commentators. And yes, I do watch the show, unlike you liberal folks who get your 1 or 2 selective out of context clips from Media Matters that you play over and over again.

But more importantly, The O'Reilly Factor delivers the kind of transparency and truthful analysis that is sorely missing from other media outlets that -- according to Anita Dunn -- the Obama Adminstration controls. O'Reilly broke wide open the story of the Obama Administration's wildly unethical non-transparent deals with General Electric, the parent of NBC Universal and MSNBC, for billion dollar contracts in green energy and technology R&D. Obviously, it would make absolute sense to question whether there's something going on when you have NBC/MSNBC's parent GE getting favorable government contracts and then GE CEO's Jeffrey Immelt is caught telling the NBC division to lay off the unfavorable coverage of President Obama (largely occuring on CNBC at the time with Rick Santelli).

If you are interested in knowing that Obama campaign advisor Robert Reich in essence confirmed a byproduct of universal healthcare was going to be what Sarah Palin surmised were "death panels" or that Obama's communications advisor Anita Dunn turns to Chairman Mao for guidance, you might want to pick up a showing of Hannity or Glenn Beck.

Among other critical stories Fox News broke was the politically earthshaking ACORN scandal in which government funded ACORN employees were caught advising a pair posing as a pimp and prostitute on how to set up their illicit business with trafficked 12 year old Salvadoran girls. You might remember Obama thanking ACORN for all the invaluable work they had done for his campaign, such as registering the dead and the homeless (often many times) to vote. While ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC were wallowing in coverage of Michelle Obama's wardrobe choices, Fox News was busy breaking ACORN stories. But what kind of value is coverage of ACORN, you ask? Well, when ACORN registers 13,000 voters in a Minnesota race that elected a Democratic Senator (God help us Al Franken) by less than 300 votes -- not to mention who originally lost by 700 votes -- you have a serious problem.

America is no doubt the greatest country in the world, but after being coddled with all we have, we have become complacent and globally unaware. We lull ourselves into thinking that because everything runs fairly smoothly -- now -- government is not brutally corrupt. But the truth of the matter is that government is slipping by the day -- everyday government seeps into the banking industry, the auto industry, the loan industry -- and you have to ask what is next (when Obama cuts deals with media parents). While the Obama Administration verbally attacks Fox News today, how do we know this "war" is not going to end up like Cristina Kirchner's attempt to regulate the Argentine media, specifically trying to force marketshare and influence away from the private Grupo Clarin, who have rightfully been critical of her corruption and economic, political, and social damage to Argentina. It's a slippery slope ladies and gentlemen. One day it's verbal attacks on Fox News, the next day it's regulating marketshare away (ever heard of the "Fairness Doctrine"), and the final day it's getting government run mobsters to shut down private media ala the crisis in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.

In light of that, thank your every last breath that we the powerless have an organization like Fox News who is willing and able to scrutinize every last nook, cranny, and action of those in power.


Photo Credit
http://www.fireandreamitchell.com/wp-content/gallery/random/robert_gibbs5.jpg