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Billionaire Warren Buffet calledWall Street’s market turmoil an eco-nomic Pearl Harbor. With twenty per-cent of New York State’s budgetcemented on the rollercoaster ups anddowns of Wall Street, Dan Melucci,Stony Brook University Associate VicePresidentforStrategy andAnalysis, hascalled the SUNY budget cuts “lunacy.”Due to the Wall Street economicdisaster, New York Governor David Pa-terson has called uponstatewide agency cuts toremedy the projected lossof revenue. In early April,SUNY was cut a total of $50 million, or roughly 3%.Takingitsshare,Stony Brook was to cut $7.4 mil-lion from its operatingbudget of the fiscal 2008-2009 year. Following theApril decision, a secondround of cuts will be un-derway, of which SUNYwill suffer a total of $96.3million. At that point,SUNY would have a netcut of 146.3 million. Stony Brook University, alongwith the other sixty-threeSUNYinstitutions,arestillwaiting for their share inthe$96.3cut.Meluccipre-dicts that Stony Brook maybelookingatabudgetcut in the ballpark of $9.5million.About a week ago,Carl McCall, Chair of thefinance and administra-tion committee of SUNYtrustees, said that SUNY will absorbanywherefrom$20to$50millionofthe$96.3 million cut leaving the rest to bedispersed among campuses. However,MeluccisaidthathebelievesSUNYwilltake a $20 million cut leaving $70-plusmillion to be distributed among thecampuses.Now with both the national andglobal economy taking a turn for theworst, GovernorPatersonhascalledforthe NYS legislature to convene after theupcomingelectionsonNovember18todiscussthefinancialcrisisloomingoverthe NYS’ budget and economy. It ishighly anticipated that this specialmeeting will result in further cuts. Ac-cording to Melucci, the Governor isfacedwitha$1.2billionshortfallinrev-enue. In order to assess this financialdilemma, the Governor is looking topropose another state-agency cut to thetune of $2 billion.In this proposed $2 billion cut,SUNY anticipates a third round of cutsas well as a possible tuition hike. Stony Brook has had only one tuition hike inthe past thirteen years, which was fiveyears ago. The latest tuition hike spikedto28%,anumberthatmayseemalarm-ing to current Stony Brook students. A28% increase of today’s tuition wouldresult in an in-state student paying$5,568 from the original $4,350, and$13,580 from the original $10,610 forout of state.A proposed alternative to a dra-matic hike in tuition, supported by Melucci and Stony Brook distinguishedSociology professor Norman Good-man, is a rationalized tuition that in-creases steadily and allows students topredict how much they would have topay for their education. Goodman, alsothe Vice President Secretary of theSUNY-wide Faculty Senate, is a sup-porter of free tuition, but deems it as“politicallyinfeasible.”Accordingtothe45-year Stony Brook Sociology profes-sor, “the most intelligent and politically wise thing to do is raise tuition to a rea-sonable level and tie that to a commit-ment to a rational policy in the future.”Itseemsthatthequestionregardingthe tuition hike is no longer “if” butrather “when?” “It would be crazy if itdoesn’t happen,” said Goodman.Melucci,whowouldalsobesurprisedif a tuition hike did not occur, is worriedabout students who rely on the TuitionAssistance Program (TAP). This pro-gram funds up to $5,000 for studentswho are the most financially needy.Melucciisworriedthatanunreasonabletuition hike may force students to chipin the amount of tuition not covered by TAP.In terms of total cuts, SUNY proj-ects to subtract a total of $210 millionby the end of the year, according toSUNY spokesperson David Henehan.Underthisprojection, SUNYislookingto receive a $64 million cut in the No- vemberemergencymeeting.AccordingtoHenehan,SUNYislookingintolong-term solutions to the chronic problemofunder-funding.Solutionsmentionedby Henehan include the proposition of a rational tuition plan and the revisionof personnel classification allowingSUNY to hire with flexibility. Thiswould permit SUNY to lease or sellpropertytogeneraterevenue,andallowSUNY to relieve its regulatory restric-tions,suchaspre-auditapprovalofcon-tracts.Currentlyadvocatingforadditionalflexibility and a tuition plan, HenehansaidaboutSUNY,“[it]providestremen-dous benefits to New York in the formof an educated citizenry, economic de- velopment,culturalenrichmentandso-cial mobility and therefore meritsinvestmentbythestate.”NewYorkStateSenator Michael J. Fitzpatrick (R) of Smithtown stressed the severity of thecurrent economic crisis. “The dust hasyet to settle,” Fitzpatrick said, “[this is]the end of a consumption culture andliving beyond our means.” When dis-cussing the SUNY cuts, Fitzpatrick saidthat higher education was of top prior-ity, but sees the “state has been spend-ing beyond its means for so long.” As aresult,cutsacrosstheboardaregoingtobe seen, includingSUNY.The Bundy Aid, untouched by any of the cuts, aids inde-pendentandprivatizeduniversities in NewYork and financially supports 105 privateinstitutions. Whenasked, Fitzpatrick saidthat the mere pointingof fingers and ques-tioning why one groupreceives more than an-other is expected, alsostatingthat“privatein-stitutions are equally importantasstate.”Yet,Fitzpatrick mentionednumerous times, “acrisis is a terrible thingto waste.” Fitzpatrick believesthatsuchacri-sis can result in legiti-mate oversight andreduce unnecessary expenditureandcreatea successful economy in the long-term pic-ture.Intermsofinvestinginhigheredu-cation, the majority of State Assembly-man and Senators interviewed relayedthe message that, due to troublingtimes, SUNY, along with all other StateAgencies, are to feel some pain. StateAssemblyman John McEneny (D) of Albany said that neither SUNY nor any other agency is “a sacred cow” that canbe protected from cuts. When it comesto tuition, “judgment comes in a vac-uum,” meaning that it would be hard to vote against a tuition hike if, alongsidethe bill, there is a proposition ensuringheat to a New York town over the win-ter, as McEneny put it.OneofthefewStatepoliticiansthatwas clear in voicing his oppositionagainst a proposed hike in tuition wasAssemblyman Steve Englebright (D) of 
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 Vol. XXX, Issue 3 | Wednesday, October 15, 2008
TuitionHikes,CutsandtheBudgetFiasco
By Najib Aminy
 
This is “The Egg” in Albany. Itʼs where they are hiding all of our money
 
The Stony Brook Press
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News
Port Jefferson Station. A former Stony Brookgraduatehimself,AssemblymanEnglebright emphasized the impor-tance of public higher education, say-ing “state universities should be givenpreferred status with cuts in otheragencies.” Referring to the domino ef-fect,Englebrightexplainedthatinvest-ingintopublichighereducationwouldcreatealong-lastingstabilityandbuildup the economy. “[Protecting SUNY]would pull us out of the recession andgive confidence back to Wall Street.”WithastrongbeliefinpreservingbothTAP and the SUNY tuition, Engle-bright sees higher education as a plat-formworthyofinvestmentandamidstthese cuts sees a so-called “million-aire’s tax” as a probable solution.Marissa Shorenstein, spokes-woman of Governor Paterson’s office,said that Governor Paterson is notlooking to raise taxes, but rather to cutspendingandinvestwisely. Shorensteinmentioned that the November meetingwas called on such a date not becauseof the elections but because, “it wassimply the first date that made sensegiven all of the recent holidays, etc.”Shorenstein added, “while the Gover-nor’scommitmenttohighereducationremains strong, difficult choices willneed to be made across state spendingtoprotectthestate’sfiscalintegrity,andevery area of state spending will needto find ways to operate more effi-ciently.”As a result of the latest cuts, Stony Brook has recently enacted a hiringfreeze. “We had to do something toslow down expenditures and to getpeople’s attention that this is a seriousissue. It makes no sense to be hiringnew people now,” said Melucci. Headded, “we don’t believe the failure of the state should be put on the back of the students in large dollar amounts. Iam really worried about the health, fi-nancial health of this institution.” Fur-ther cuts could result in significant andhighly visible changes for both Stony Brook and SUNY students alike. Ac-cording to Goodman, the number of classes would dwindle due to a de-creased number in professional staff.This would mean larger class sizes,which would result in a longer time tograduate and further raise student ex-penses.“When Wall Street catches a cold,the NYS budget gets pneumonia,” saidAssemblyman Englebright. As a result,SUNY and its students end up being af-fected. An increased tuition hike canremedy only so much. With potentially morecutsontheway,itleavesadminis-trators like Melucci crunching the re-maining numbers, hoping for the best.“We run some numbers that scare thehell out of us very honestly,” saidMelucci, “the numbers are so scary thatthey are absurd.”
 
Screw you, you goofy looking putz!
During a lecture on October 8,hosted by the Social Justice Alliance,KristoferGoldsmith,a23-year-oldIraqiWar veteran, said, “I didn’t shoot thekid, not because I’m a good person, butbecause I knew his family would retali-ate and kill me or my friends.”Goldsmith recounted the details of a night operation, one during which hewascoveringhiscommandingofficerasan Iraqi squad executed a raid. Thechild, brandishing a faux AK-47 on arooftop, was in Goldsmith’s sight, butGoldsmith, having probable cause toshoot,didnot. ItwastheIraqichildren,throwing bricks when their easily shoot-ableparentscouldnot,whomadeGoldsmith’s“miserableexperienceevenmore physically painful.” Goldsmithdidn’t shoot, knowing the hell thatcould come his way would be a greaterthreat than the prevailing one.Kristofer Goldsmith, a Long Is-lander who enlisted in the U.S. Marinesout of high school, found himself at 18,with “the God-like power to destroy anything.” Acting as the right hand of the U.S.A. in Sadr City, Goldsmithfound that his training with heavy ar-tillery was not usable as the Iraqi Con-flict became a game of insurgence, andhe became recast as a ground intelli-gence officer. It wasn’t the halo of bombsbutthe“flashofacamera”whichburned indelible images into his mem-ory. These pictures, projected onto aplain wall in Harriman Hall, were awindow into the frayed outskirts of Baghdad. The streets were brown andblack: it was not sand, pavement, or theRiver Styx, but raw sewage flowingdown the boulevard, loosed by bombsand the crush and roll of Abrams tanksdown the streets during the invasion.Goldsmith was ordered to a sewer,where he had to photo-ID the bodies of twelve men who had been killed anddumped. “Iwaswalkingaround,totally fucked up, making it less real by look-ing through the LCD screen and not attheir faces,” Goldsmith said as heshowed the pictures he took of facesabused and decayed beyond identifica-tion. “War porn” was the only thingthey could be, he reasoned, as no per-son could be identified from the pic-tures he took. “War porn” is a term forpictures taken by soldiers to show off their kills, much like the proto-Euro-pean practice of beheading one’s ene-mies after battle and tying the severedhead to the victor’s belt. My, haven’t weadvanced!Thosefurtherupthechainof command would snatch the picturesand claim them as their own and tradethem like “Pokemon cards.” Goldsmithstood before the bodies as flies broughtthe “smell of death” to his face, a smellwhich he could not scrub, sanitize orboil out.“I smelled a lot of death in Iraq, lotsof dead animals, and there is a big dif-ference between that and the smell of adead human being,” Goldsmith said. “Ismelled it non-stop. Food tasted likedeath. My dreams smelled like death.”The death did not stop once Gold-smith left Iraq but followed the soldiersback. One-in-five soldiers suffer frompost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),and eighteen Iraqi War veterans com-mit suicide every day. The death hasnot stopped in Iraq, where there is noaccurate number of casualties, only es-timatessomewhere in the vague seabe-tween 10,000 and 100,000, wheremillions of people suffer the effects of PTSD from living in Armageddon forover six years. “I encourage you not to just care about the soldiers, but theIraqis, and do something. Go speak toa representative and tell them why thisiswrong,”Goldsmithsaid, “Stop-loss iswrong.”The loss hasnot stopped. Thus, it iswrong.
 APlaceWherePalmTreesOnceGrew...
By Natalie Crnosija
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