NYT Op-Ed: NY State U's fell hard for the biotech money (fraud) and lost
Mort Zuckerman
lPick...@cdc.gov, Durlan...@yale.edu, Aa...@columbia.edu,
gary_w...@nymc.edu, scientifi...@ostp.gov,
pkru...@princeton.edu, Stanle...@fiu.edu,
emcsw...@niaid.nih.gov, afa...@niaid.nih.gov,
Spin...@yahoogroups.com, kshe...@calea.org, fit...@gmail.com,
patrick.f...@usdoj.gov, model...@sbcglobal.net,
jdr...@nejm.org, let...@courant.com, Jgerb...@cdc.gov,
michae...@po.state.ct.us, con...@po.state.ct.us, executive-
edi...@nytimes.com, managin...@nytimes.com, news-
ti...@nytimes.com, biz...@nytimes.com, for...@nytimes.com,
nati...@nytimes.com, dv...@cdc.gov, brigidc...@optonline.net,
tr...@hotmail.com, illino...@aol.com, jle...@courant.com,
tinaj...@yahoo.com, jhorn...@fff.org, thomas...@usdoj.gov,
thoma...@po.state.ct.us, kur...@washpost.com,
georg...@washpost.com, p...@allegorypress.com,
commissi...@po.state.ct.us, brans...@comcast.net,
vts...@comcast.net, o...@po.state.ct.us, freet...@charter.net,
scott....@po.state.ct.us, govern...@po.state.ct.us,
attorney...@po.state.ct.us, randall...@usdoj.gov,
Robert....@yale.edu, edi...@greenwich-post.com,
harol...@yale.edu, sedm...@nswbc.org, rrmcg...@aol.com,
fr...@nytimes.com, dpr...@stmartin.edu, saint....@sbcglobal.net,
ksul...@rockpointe.com
Cc: fra...@ucia.gov, dr-ahma...@president.ir,
eugener...@washpost.com, afa...@niaid.nih.gov,
bmi...@newstimes.com, tr...@hotmail.com, rast...@aol.com,
billc...@gmail.com, amcg...@rms-law.com, rjmu...@aol.com,
paulcrai...@yahoo.com, criminal...@usdoj.gov,
karla.d...@usdoj.gov, christophe...@usdoj.gov,
richar...@yale.edu, harol...@yale.edu, james.p...@yale.edu,
inq...@aldf.com, ly...@idsociety.org, meganm...@theatlantic.com
Subject: NYT Op-Ed: NY State U's fell hard for the biotech money
(fraud) and lost
Date: Jul 28, 2010 6:44 AM
NYT Op-Ed, below
===================================
New York State Biotech flopped because it
was based on a lie. The only person who
stood his ground all these years was Ben
Luft.
Corrupticut suffered the same fate.
Now both states have to deal with no money,
no grants, no "Biotech Empire," and no reputation.
"The entrepreneurial trio" were:
http://www.actionlyme.org/CONNOLLY_FISH_WEINSTEIN.htm
Kaiser-Permanente ^^^in partnership with
Crazy Eddie's good buddy Durland Fish
(but neither is an MD.)
Dummies, liars, perverts and screwballs:
http://www.actionlyme.org/GOLDWATER_LETTER.htm
Nothing but infamy... and the Chinese
publishing how to pharm stealth bioweapons
that are microbide-resistant.
NY and CT have nothing to teach anyone.
KMDickson
http://www.actionlyme.org
http://www.relapsingfever.org
=====================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/opinion/28salins.html?_r=1&hp
Op-Ed Contributor
Stop Raiding the Ivory Tower
By PETER D. SALINS
Published: July 27, 2010
Stony Brook, N.Y.
IT is not a disagreement about expenditures or taxes that is
preventing the New York State Legislature from passing a 2011 budget.
No, it is a piece of legislation called the Public Higher Education
Empowerment and Innovation Act, which has the enthusiastic backing of
Gov. David Paterson and grudging approval from the State Senate, but
is bitterly opposed by the Assembly and its speaker, Sheldon Silver.
This bill would allow the state’s two public university systems, the
City University of New York and the State University of New York, to
set their own tuition rates and give them the freedom to raise
additional revenue to compensate for the $840 million in budget cuts
the state has imposed on them over the last three years. Such a move
is long overdue, especially considering that most of the money for
SUNY and CUNY no longer comes from state taxpayers.
Look at SUNY’s budget: out of a total annual system-wide expenditure
of $11 billion, only $3.5 billion is from the state. The other 68
percent comes from students, research foundations, generous donors and
clients of the university’s health centers and other facilities. The
CUNY proportions are comparable. As a top SUNY financial official
recently told me, New York is “only a minority shareholder” in its
public universities.
However, state legislators treat all of this non-taxpayer money as if
it were theirs to collect and disburse. Despite cutting the
universities’ budgets, lawmakers have raised tuition — by $620 for the
2009-2010 semesters, and again by $100 for the coming school year —
and then kept about 90 percent of the resulting revenues. They even
want to control how the universities spend some of their outside
grants and donations.
The higher education act would allow both CUNY and SUNY to set their
tuition levels without the Legislature’s approval and keep all the
resulting revenue, accept and retain all money from research grants
and philanthropic gifts, more easily enter into contracts with private
vendors and enterprise partners, streamline hospital operations, fast-
track campus construction and lease parts of their campuses to other
parties for academically appropriate purposes.
These new freedoms would be hemmed in by restrictions to maintain
student affordability, prevent financial abuses and safeguard the
universities’ primary academic missions. Tuition increases would be
kept below the Higher Education Price Index, the most widely used
gauge of national college cost inflation; all expenditures and
contracts would still be subject to stringent state accounting rules;
and land leases and contracts would be overseen by newly established
state boards, just to mention a few of the bill’s many constraints.
These ideas are not new. During the 1980s, when Clifton Wharton was
the chancellor of SUNY and Mario Cuomo was governor, a commission
appointed by the SUNY trustees advocated something quite similar. In
the years since, the SUNY board has repeatedly pleaded for a “rational
tuition policy” that would end the tendency of the Legislature to keep
tuition frozen during economic good times when parents might be able
to afford increases, only to impose substantial increases during
recessions, as happened this year.
Given this history, it is surprising and heartening that the public
higher education act has even gotten this far. But there could be no
better time: Beyond the immediate benefits for CUNY’s and SUNY’s
students and managers, this legislation could help resuscitate the
state’s moribund economy. After all, the education of more than
700,000 degree-earning students on 87 campuses contributes tens of
billions of dollars a year to the state economy. What’s more, research
at the state universities has long played a vital role in New York’s
high technology industries.
The M.R.I. was invented at SUNY’s Downstate Medical Center. The bar
code reader was developed at SUNY Stony Brook. SUNY Albany’s College
of Nanoscale Science and Engineering is working on a new generation of
computer chips. SUNY Buffalo’s growing life sciences center is a major
engine of the local economy, which is why Buffalo’s Democratic state
senator, William Stachowski, won’t sign on to a budget deal without
the public higher education act.
The Assembly’s opposition, ostensibly out of concern for student
affordability, is both misplaced and insincere. It is misplaced
because New York’s Tuition Assistance Program underwrites, on a
sliding scale tied to their level of need, low-income students’
tuition burden. And it is insincere because the state has not, over
the long term, kept tuition levels below the higher education price
index. As we’ve seen, not only does the Legislature increase tuition
in huge leaps at the most economically inopportune times, it then
retains the tuition revenue to offset losses in general tax receipts.
At the same time, the governor’s endorsement of this bill may rest as
much on fiscal necessity as on its merits. CUNY and SUNY are among the
few state entities whose budgets are not held hostage by politically
powerful interest groups like unionized health care workers and
teachers, so giving the schools the ability to raise their tuition as
needed would make it easier for the state to significantly reduce its
contributions to them. Whatever his motive, however, the governor is
right and the Assembly is wrong.
Unless CUNY and SUNY can count on stable and predictable revenues, and
have the flexibility to use them effectively to assure a high quality
of instruction and research, these great universities will slowly
wither, taking the state’s economy along with them.
Peter D. Salins, a former provost of the State University of New York,
is a professor of political science at the State University at Stony
Brook.
KMDickson