The Future
With the recession going on and life as my generation knows it changing, lots of economic turmoil is to be found.
Right now Nevada is facing it’s highest unemployment rate since 1983 at 9.1%, well above the national average of 7.2%.
With unemployment and business being down for downtown, the state of Nevada’s income has plummeted and the state budget has changed dramatically.
The Governor, whom I greatly disagree with, proposed his budget to the legislative earlier this month and the legislative will begin voting and deciding what to do come February.
Governor Gibbons wants to kill education for K-16 because he promised no new taxes, but he’s willing to “tax” state workers by proposing a 6% income decrease. This includes teachers, state employees, college employees, university employees, legislators, and himself, though I could care less for him.
Of course his proposed income decrease would affect us, but also his cut to higher education which would also mean a 50% cut to the higher education system that my husband works for.
Governor Gibbons wants to kill higher education in the state of Nevada.
But I am so thankful for a democracy and that he is not solely in charge of Nevada’s future.
Of course the fact that Jon works and is attending a public university greatly concerns me. Since he’s not yet finished with his master’s, but his program could be cut and he might not finish his masters concerns me. The fact that he may not have a job in a year and a half concerns me, but what mostly concerns me is that the Governor was not willing to step up and say, even though now we are facing a hardship we need to step up and continue to help the government so the government can help you. We need to tax the people, or some of the big businesses who have come here because of our tax breaks and grow up as a state and say yes we want a bright future for our children not, I promised no tax increase so I’m suggesting we do nothing and just kill education. I want our state to be less educated and kill our future.
The state services and education services are not businesses. Cutting costs won’t help us if it kills the opportunities for others.
The following is somewhat harsh speech given by Chancellor Rogers on the State of the System. I encourage all to read it or listen, at least those who live in Nevada, and I encourage all to write to their legislators to tell them we are willing to spend on our children.
The time is difficult and I’m not saying this just because I want my husband to stay employed, I’m saying this because I want my husband to continue his education, and still be allowed that opportunity in this hard time.
I’m saying this because what we need is more support for our education system,รย our children’s future, and our future. For without an educated population we will fail and just become buildings in the desert.
January 27th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Thank you for your post.
I agree, the 6% salary decrease would be the equivalent of a tax. My husband works for school district.
6% ends up nearly looking like one less month of pay. (50000*.06=3000; 50000/12=4167)
Decreasing property values are also bankrupting the system.
Gambling revenue is way down. (Casinos already don’t pay much, but they’re making less too which means they’re paying even less.)
Not that I’m on the Gov.’s side, but what solutions would you offer the Gov. to fix the situation? There’s nowhere to find the money without either cutting programs, budgets and salaries or raising taxes. It’s unfortunate that Education has to suffer, but where else can we cut?
January 28th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Well, there is taxing the people for one. We don’t have a state income tax maybe we need to grow up and have a state income tax.
There are businesses like mining that can’t really leave and go somewhere else that get tax breaks, along with large corporations that we’ve given tax breaks to so they’ll come here, like Target and Wal-Mart.
We pride ourselves on being a low tax state, but really where has that gotten us? Our education system suffers and now will be getting the majority of the cuts. (We’re getting 472 million and the next cut is 70 million to corrections or public safety.)
People have come here to live, but if we continue this way then people will leave because we won’t be producing an educated population.
We need CSN to produce nurses, we need the law school to produce lawyers, and the other educated people to do their jobs. We have a lot of “imports” to our area and when the going gets tough they’re ready to leave. My cousin who is a teacher from Utah said they would leave if the 6% income decrease went into affect and I’m sure a lot of other teachers who come from out of state might also, so our school system will fail even more and people who can will continue to leave and all we’ll have is an uneducated population trying to import more people, who are also willing to leave.
Education is a key to developing a bright future, without education the lights will grow dim, both mentally and literally.