Trucking industry lobbyist calls for faculty layoffs as solution to budget crisis.

In Sunday's Sun, Regent Wixom made an excellent contribution to a discussion of the states' financial crisis, pointing out that by no means was the state in fine shape three years ago -- and it was precisely the refusal to invest in a diverse economy then which led to our last-in-the-nation economic performance today.

Whats most telling, and bizarre, about that feature is that the head of the state's trucking lobby can find no better solution to the state's dismal situation than ... to fire university faculty. His comment


On the university side, we need to look at how some of these contracts are negotiated. So if you want to lay somebody off it doesn’t take you a year or 20 months to lay somebody off.

Why in the world, Mr Enos, are you so eager to lay off faculty? What goal could that possibly serve? How in the world does this have anything to do with the prosperity of the trucking industry in this state?

Just another so-called business leader who takes a knee-jerk ideological position that the problem in this state is too much education.

No wonder we're in a world of hurt.