Jimbo Eruptions

Nevada's chancellor says the state's public education system is a "disaster" and will get worse if Jimbo has his way.

Of course it is true. But as somebody who has lived in this state for 25 years and probably not much longer, there are too many people in this state who want a free ride and think the state shouldn't have to spend any money on public services. They are also very resentful of people who work in the public sector, as they have made terrible occupational choices and are jealous of those who have had relatively secure jobs. A case in point was when the Reno Gazette-Journal decided to publish the salaries of public employees in some kind of attempt I believe to create animosity with the general public and without giving some kind of background as to why the salaries are the way they are. Yesterday the paper's online edition had a section about firefighters, and noted 41 percent of Reno fire department workers made over $100,000 in 2007. Naturally, as comments poured in trying to straighten the writer out as to WHY this was so, including many firefighters going out of state to fight fires and racking up overtime pay as a result--which is required by law, by the way, as they are hourly workers--other commenters were just beside themselves in anger that these lazy bums were drawing giant paychecks while sitting around at the fire station eating and watching television. These same fools don't seem to object when robber barons like Madoff can get rich ripping off people of millions and millions of dollars, or when our government bails out robber barons on Wall Street. But if a public sector employee makes anything even approaching a middle-class income, these idiots yell and scream about it.

It's divisive tactics like the newspaper's "data collection" articles and what Jimbo is pulling which makes fools who should know better fall for the anti-government, anti-public schools, anti-public employee propaganda. What is tragic is Nevada is dying on the vine without some drastic changes in its revenue base. Nevada can't depend solely on tourism and warehouse distribution for revenue and jobs. That's why it is necessary to fund education, which in turn attracts businesses to the area and creates jobs.

More facts are here about state spending. Not that the rednecks care one iota. Government isn't supposed to exist anyway, so ANY amount of money spent is bad.