Eating the Seed Corn

The word of the LORD came to Elijah:

Leave here, go east and hide in the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan.You shall drink of the wadi, and I have commanded ravens to feed you there.

So he left and did as the LORD had commanded. He left and remained by the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan.

Ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the wadi.

After some time, however, the wadi ran dry, because no rain had fallen in the land.

So the word of the LORD came to him:

Arise, go to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow there to feed you.

He arose and went to Zarephath. When he arrived at the entrance of the city, a widow was there gathering sticks; he called out to her, “Please bring me a small cupful of water to drink.”

She left to get it, and he called out after her, “Please bring along a crust of bread.”

She said, “As the LORD, your God, lives, I have nothing baked; there is only a handful of flour in my jar and a little oil in my jug. Just now I was collecting a few sticks, to go in and prepare something for myself and my son; when we have eaten it, we shall die.”

1 Kings 17 

The State of Wyoming is cutting, again, funds to the University of Wyoming.

This is part of across the board cuts. . .sort of.  Money budgeted for "clean coal" and a lawsuit attempting to force open ports remains. . . even as we are about to enter a four year administration of a President who has promised to phase out petroleum and who implicitly regards coal as a thing of the past.  And, before people get too up in arms about the incoming administration, it has to be noted that technological trends, longstanding for coal, but now also entering the petroleum field, suggest that the evolution away from fossil fuels may have entered a technological phase where they will continue no matter who is President.

Lest this seem too off topic, for something austensibly on the funding of the University of Wyoming, the reason the state is in massive financial trouble is because coal and oil aren't paying the bills anymore.  That day may be over even if petroleum makes a partial recovery.  Or even if it makes a full one.  The budget was in trouble before the collapse of petroleum prices, because of the collapse of coal.  The state may have its hopes pinned on a breakthrough on coal, but make no mistake, it'd be nearly a Manhattan Project size breakthrough in order to address the trend.  

All of this points to the need for the state to find a new means of funding itself.  It's going to half to think outside of the box, and as part of that its going to have to look at taxes There are things here that can be done in order to address the funding crisis that will not impact most Wyomingites, but as they would tend to impact the wealthiest Wyomingites, we'll have to be in a much deeper crisis than we presently are, and that would be deep, in oder to get there.  And it'd likely require a more active minority party to even be considered.

But one thing that shouldn't be considered is cuts to the University of Wyoming.

UW predated the current funding model of the state and its one of the real gems of the state.  It's also one of the real hopes of the state.  Funding shouldn't be decreased, it should be increased.  If funding clean coal makes sense, funding education certainly does.

The University of Wyoming is a land grant university.  While tied, originally, to agriculture, the entire concept of land grant universities was to fund education for those states coming into the Union following 1862.  Very progressive for its time, the backers of the system recognized that education would be directly tied to the economic fortunes of the state.  Somehow the state's leadership seems to have forgotten that.

Even just tying it to the original purpose of agriculture the state isn't going as of good job as it could.  We don't have a veterinarian program, for example even though there's both an agricultural and domestic need for veterinarians.  

Indeed, we lack professional degree programs with one solitary exception. UW doesn't issue MD degrees or DDS degrees, even though there is a need for both in the state.  The only professional degree issued, now "celebrating" the 100th anniversary of its founding, is the JD issued by the College of Law, but the state's adopting of the UBE makes the need for it moot.  Indeed, the one cut that really should be made is the College of Law, if which I'm a graduate, as it is no longer needed.

In lots of areas the university has done very well with what it has.  It's programs in all fields are overall excellent. But that's the point.  Cutting its budget will mean it has to make more cuts, and it just cut some degree programs.  It likely could cut more, but will have to be careful about it.

But the state should have no illusions. The more that is cut, the more we are simply exporting our young population.  Most of the exported population won't come back.  As that progresses, we'll increasingly become the state of the old, attracted to the state for a lack of taxes in their declining years.  Essentially a state of nursing homes and low paying nursing home jobs.

Elijah, in the Old Testament passage above, assured the woman that things would be fine and in fact they were.  But Elijah wasn't simply touring the land with the "it'll be okay message".  Indeed, he was a pretty tough person in general and his message was pretty stern.  

We seem to be simply assuming that everything will be okay.  We certainly aren't beseeching God for relief and we don't seem to be addressing any of our personal conduct in a radical way that's calculated for success in this crisis.  

We're now eating the seed corn.

We will regret that.