In the ongoing debate about why the dominance of liberals in the academia, perhaps we find some answers from this Wall Street Journal article (bold highlight mine)….
``With the Big Three seeking a bailout from Washington, the Big Ten are following suit. Earlier this week the Carnegie Corporation of New York took out a two-page ad in the New York Times, signed by executives of 36 public universities, state university systems and higher-education associations, urging Congress and President-elect Obama to rescue them.
``Mr. Obama has already promised to expand federal subsidies to higher education by increasing Pell grants and making student-loan terms more permissive. The university chiefs seek an additional "federal infusion of capital" -- as much as $45 billion -- to build new facilities, especially "green" ones. "To ensure a rapid response, only projects that are shovel-ready or on which construction can begin within 120-180 days should be funded," says the ad.
``The Higher Education Investment Act, as the university chiefs call their proposed bailout, would allow them to make an end run around parsimonious state lawmakers: "The dollars should not be subject to appropriation by state legislatures. Federal funds should be conditional on states' agreement not to use these federal funds as an excuse to reduce budgetary commitments to state universities."
``Yet American higher education might benefit from more parsimony. Economist Richard Vedder has shown that large government subsidies already contribute to making universities "relatively inefficient institutions partly sheltered from the discipline of the market -- a discipline that provides incentives for cost reductions, product improvement, and innovation." The more subsidies rise, the higher tuitions seem to go. If taxpayers are going to shovel out more money to these schools, the academic executives should at least allow outsiders to perform a cost "restructuring."
Inefficient institutions that survive only from government largesse! Essentially you can’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Perhaps another clue can be found from this article… “With economy in shambles, Congress gets a raise” (thehill.com)
``A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.
``Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.
“As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain,” said Daniel O’Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. “This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter.”
``However, at 2.8 percent, the automatic raise that lawmakers receive is only half as large as the 2009 cost of living adjustment of Social Security recipients….
It’s especially nice to get enlisted as part of the government’s bureaucratic network especially when the economy-or the private sector- is in a recession.
Yet this isn't just a US affair as the dominance of liberals in the domestic arena is also apparent. They are frequently quoted by the press or write Op Ed columns for popular broadsheets. These days they write about the need for the so-called "equitable distribution" of land reform.
