Seems University Chancellor Jim Rogers hasn’t taken too kindly to voices of opposition which call into question His Highness’s claim that there’s nothing in the higher education budget which can be cut during these lean times.
According to Nevada state Sen. Bob Beers, Rogers was asked this week by reporter Samantha Stone if he had read the senator’s blog which discussed “the many areas where Chancellor Rogers could reduce the increases in NSHE’s (Nevada System of Higher Education) budget without harming student services.” Reportedly Rogers replied that he wouldn’t read the good senator’s blog until Sen. Beers spent a month on a university campus so he could see first-hand how tough professors have it and how impossible it is to cut the university’s budget.
Oh, how I wish the Chancellor would extend the same challenge to me! I’d take it in a heartbeat. That is, if the Chancellor would accept my Ultimate Jim Rogers Challenge in return.
First, I’d be happy to spend a month on a university campus provided I be paid $10,000 for the month - the same amount of money per month that Mr. Rogers paid the incredibly unqualified former Democrat congressional candidate Tessa Hafen to lobby the Legislature this year and WAY more than I currently earn working for Citizen Outreach (they don’t call it “non-profit” work for nuthin’).
Secondly, while I’m working on campus for that month, Mr. Rogers - who thinks Nevadans should pay higher taxes rather than cut his university budget - will spend the same month living off the salary of the average Nevada family.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the average median household income in Nevada for 2006 was around $51,000. After federal withholding taxes are deducted, and a small amount is set aside for charity and savings, that leaves the average Nevada household with about $3,500 a month to live on.
TV mogul Jim Rogers, on the other hand, is, and has been for a very long time, considerably wealthy. We’re talking multi-millions here, folks. The kind of wealth where you can use hundred dollar bills to light your Cuban cigars. So I’m quite sure he has absolutely no idea what it’s like to raise, say, two school-aged kids on $3,500 a month these days.
So let’s give him $3,500 and for a month so he can see exactly the kind of house and/or apartment you have to live in on that kind of money, compared to the gated digs with the fine-trimmed lawn he’s used to.
Let him find out what kind of used car you can afford, compared to the shiny new wheels with GPS he’s used to tooling around in.
Let him find out what kind of Hamburger Helper groceries you can buy on that kind of income, compared to eating out every night in the finest of fine-dining restaurants.
Let him find out what it’s like to drink Pabst Blue Ribbon instead of Dom Perignon.
Let him find out what it’s like shopping at Wal-Mart instead of Saks Fifth Avenue.
Oh, oh, OH! And let him shop around and find out what kind of family health insurance plan he can get on that kind of income, compared to the Rolls Royce insurance plans university system employees enjoy at taxpayer expense.
And here’s the biggie: Let him find out exactly what kind of K-12 education his two kids are going to get when he’s pulling in that kind of income.
I guarantee you, little Jimmy and Jeanie Rogers won’t be going to a private school decked out in Oxfords and freshly-starched uniforms. On a monthly income of $3,500, the Rogers kids are going to a government-run public school, baby.
And not even a nice suburban public school. On that kind of income, the Rogers family is probably going to have to live in a declining urban neighborhood where the local public school “uniform” is baggy pants, a tank-top, a baseball cap worn backwards, rings through the lips, nose and eyebrows, and, if lucky, a bullet-proof vest to cover all the tattoos on your chest.
(How’s that for sarcasm and scorn, Regent Rosenberg?)
I am so sick of super-rich guys like Jim Rogers - completely disconnected from the reality of working-class families - telling Nevada taxpayers they’re not paying enough in taxes and that he can’t even cut out the “Culture of Pizza” course in his university system.
So damn right I’ll spend a month working on one of his ivory-towered campuses of higher education to see how “tough” professors have it…if he’ll take The Ultimate Jim Rogers Challenge and spend a month walking in the worn-out shoes of the average working Nevadan that same month.
I won’t be holding my breath waiting.
Posted on December 14th, 2007 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada
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