PI I { . ..OPIN ION 4Page Saturday, November 1, 1980 The Michigan Doily Has the University overreacted to Tisch? Robert Tisch has a good idea; he just went too far with it. The University has responded to Tisch's tax cut plan in a similarly extreme manner. Since when does a transparent propaganda cam- paign qualify as "voter education"? CONCERNS OF University officials that the popular tax cut plan would hurt the Univer- sity are valid. Worries about voters not getting enough information to make an educated decision are understandable. It's easy for most of us to see that the Shiawassee County drain commissioner's drastic plan for a tax cut would hurt everyone in the state in one way, or another. But it would also help others. Many people want-and need-a property tax cut. I WORRY that Tisch jill pass next week; so do most other denizens of the University. That's why we're being inundated with anti- Tisch literature. Yet the passage of Proposal D wouldn't be the end of the world-or, as some have suggested, the end of public higher education in Michigan. The Tisch Tax Cut Amendment would reduce 'property taxes by about 50 percent and cut state revenues by about $2 billion. That much everybody agrees on. But no one-not Tisch or the brightest University economist or State Budget Director Gerald Miller-can predict exactly what will happen if the ballot plan passes next week. It might-but probably not to the extent Tisch hopes-give a one-sided boost to the economy. It could force the University to shift from public to private funding. A few geology professors might have to be let go; Italian may have to be dropped from the Romance Language department's curriculum. BUT THE devastation many prominent. California economists predicted would occur under Proposition 13 never materialized. The fear campaigns, in California then and in Michigan now, are amazingly similar, says one University staff member familiar with the California situation. The University has made extensive use of an- ti-Tisch mailings and anti-Tisch commentary By Julie Engebrecht at events such as football games and plays and through University publications. It has begged for contributions to the anti-Tisch campaigns and pleaded for student assistance. A slide show, which presents higher education's op- position to the Tisch tax cut plan, has been lugged across the state to both willing and un- willing audiences. The University's anti-Tisch campaign is well-orchestrated propaganda; it's not voter education. MANY OF US-students, faculty, and staff-will have to leave if Tisch passes, the University tells us. Those students who stay will have to pay double or triple the tuition and accept program cuts. The list goes on. University President Harold Shapiro is one of Tisch's most visible critics. While he is usually thoughtful and rational, the furor over Tisch has changed all that. Shapiro comes off as a desperate man who would do almost anything to see the Tisch plan defeated. The Univer- sity appears as an arrogant institution that would do almost anything to save itself from financial harm. The University's anti-Tisch propaganda seems to ignore that some people don't really care if the University exists. IN PRESENTATIONS to many groups across the state, University officials preaching the value of higher education in the context of Tisch are greeted with hostility. Those Michigan citizens who have observed the recent controversies involving the state's major universities are given more ammunition to justify complaints of waste in the state government and in state-funded institutions. Recent furor over questionable expenditures by Michigan State University's trustees and sizable expenditures on renovations for university presidents' homes, put public higher education in a negative light among much of the electorate. The controversy MSU President Cecil Mackey has generated at that school and the hazing incidents here add more fuel to the fire. THE UNIVERSITIES do nothing to help themselves by using platitudes to explain the role of higher education within the state. Many people just don't understand-even students and Ann Arbor residents. The basic slide presentation used to promote an anti-Tisch vote both on and off campus is full of these platitudes; it's no secret the University is speaking from self-interest. It creates suspiscions. and the University has done nothing to dispel the distrust. Would it be that bad if some of us had to con- tinue our educations elsewhere? $lenty of .colleges and universities are crying for studen- ts. The University does have some respon- sibility to educate voters about what would happen to higher education if the Tisch plan passed. But it's a shame that an educational in- stitution refuses to lay out the facts and simply let state residents decide by themselves. The endless propaganda is getting to be too much. Julie Engebrecht has been reporting on the tax proposals for the Daily. 0 A. 4F & 4, Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan 1 ^- r IAA "1 ___ . J C Higgins a Cl Vol. XCI, No. 51 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 0 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board From shah to Khomeini to yet another shah PO LLYOU) I GE 7NO RESPE~CT.. WNeN t WAS SWORN IN S PROMISED r D BRING THIS COUNTRY T6EflER _I DID. ThYA LLR WANT T~O OT FOR RONALD? REAGA 4! MY AV$R INFOR~MED ME. VI$ MORNING THATI I~L~ POINTh IN 1E. 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