Miami Student

Issue date: 4/1/08 Section: Editorials

When Congress passed appropriations bills this year, something was missing for Miami University. Other universities, such as the University of Cincinnati, has a greater chance of receiving earmarks, whereas Miami has failed to receive Congressional earmarks. The process of earmarking-the practice of allocating specific funds for a congressional district or project-has been not only a major portion of pork-barrel spending, but also of financing the projects of higher education. Miami University, however, has been excluded from this additional resource because the personal politics of our own representative, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), who opposes earmarking in support of President Bush's and others' calls to increase fiscal responsibility. The Miami Student editorial board believes that this university must protect its own research and programming interests, and strongly disagrees with the ideologies of Boehner and his blanket opposition to earmarking funds for this district. We believe that the only possible means of maintaining our academic competitiveness is to circumvent Boehner and attempt to gain funds from the federal government through other channels.

While it may at first seem like sound fiscal policy to eliminate earmarks, they are extremely important for creating opportunities for scientific research or historical projects. Understandably, the majority of earmarking criticisms come from their manner of being outside the normal purview of public debate. However, unless there is a complete ban of the practice, other schools will continue receiving money as Miami falls to the wayside. Despite Boehner's congressional standing and possible influence, his criticisms of earmarking are not sparking a large enough movement to change the status quo and thus his political decisions are only going to negatively impact our district while other universities and regions will continue to receive funding.

Furthermore, this money would go toward promoting hard science projects and the digitization of the historic McGuffey Readers. Even Ohio Congressman, Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), supports the earmarking of funds if they are of merit to the citizens he represents.

This board believes that not only does Boehner's comments on earmarking create an inherent disposition of Miami administrators to push for federal funds, but that his intractability must be viewed through the lens of Gov. Ted Strickland's new plan for state universities. Since Strickland's program would require a division of responsibilities and increased cooperation between state universities, any university scholarship lag caused by a decrease in expected funds will damage not only our reputation, but also our ability to interact academically on the same level as the other Ohio institutions. Because of the importance that maintaining inter-university relationships represents, this board fully supports the university administration's decision to circumvent Boehner's political decisions. We encourage using alternative avenues into federal funding if our representative continues to put impractical national decisions above the needs of his constituents.

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