4 - The Michigan Daily - Monday, July 24, 2006 FROM THE DAILY Stem the tide Bush's stem-cell veto irrational, divisive JEREMY DAVIDSON Editor in Chief IMRAN SYED Editorial Page Editor JEFFREY BLOOMER Managing Editor EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890. 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their author. Editorial Board Members: Amanda Andrade, Emily Beam, Jared Goldberg, Theresa Kennelly, Christopher Zbrozek FROM THE DAILY Up, up and away Tuition increase highlights need for greater state funding t took more than five years and 1,130 bills, but President Bush is finally on the board with his first-ever veto. Given he was zero for his last 1,130, you can't blame the guy for looking to hit a homerun with that first veto. Hurled at legislation that aimed to reduce federal barriers to embryonic stem-cell research, the veto did just that,putting up one big run for nonsensical benightedness and polarizing bigotry - not to mention leaving potentially life-saving research in a deep hole to climb out from. Though this was Bush's first official veto, he's no stranger to turning his back on legislation after signing it. In a col- umn posted on the website FindLaw. com at the beginning of the year, for- mer White House counsel to President Nixon John W. Dean - naturally a man who ought to know a thing or two about the abuses of executive power - cited a rather enlightening tally. According to Philip Cooper, an expert on presidential signing statements, wrote Dean, Presi- dent Bush appended signing statements to 107 different bills he signed into law during his first term. The signing statement - a tradition- ally rare executive tactic used to defang legislation the president opposes but cannot veto without losing face - has thus always been Bush's unofficial veto. But could he simply defang legislation that would open up for federal funds for research that the majority of scientists and Democrats, and even a good number of House and Senate Republicans, deem vital? Of course not. Crucial, bipartisan, common-sense legislation should be shot down outright. Embryonic stem-cell research is a vital part of the future of productive health sci- ence research, one that has been unnec- essarily and dangerously suffocated by prohibitive federal - and in Michigan's case, state - laws. Bush and his support- ers (surprisingly few, though they include Michigan gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos), claim that the benefits of stem- cell research can be fully extracted by researching only adult stem cells and existing embryonic lines (never mind that they're contaminated), thereby eliminat- ing the need to, as they see it, "destroy life" by using human embryos obtained from places like fertility clinics. But the vast majority of such embryos would oth- erwise be discarded, so why not study them and potentially develop cures for debilitating diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's? We're baffled. Senator Arlen Spector (R-Pa.), for- mer First Lady Nancy Reagan, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-Calif.) and 50 Republican members of the U.S. House aren't so sure either; they support embryonic stem-cell research despite the incessant misguided and shallow rhetoric of the religious right. Sure, the president could listen to them - or the plurality of the scientists and vast major- ity of Democrats - but it wouldn't be the Bush White House be if irrational- ity, closed-mindedness and divisiveness didn't rule the day. Anearly 6-percent tuition increase for undergraduate students at the University next year is, it seems, what passes for good news in these parts. Thanks to a 3-percent increase in state appro- priations after years of cuts, the Uni- versity was able to avoid a double-digit increase similar to last year's 12.3-per- cent tuition hike. Yearly tuition increases far above the general rate of inflation, however, pose problems for the University. Though the University deserves credit for its commit- ment to financial aid, sticker shock from high tuition deters many students from even applying. The state, for its part, has to commit to greater and more consistent funding to its public universities ifa qual- ity education is to become accessible to everyone in Michigan. The budget approved by the University Board of Regents on Friday includes a 5.5-percent increase for both in-state and out-of-state undergraduates in the Col- lege of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Across all undergraduate programs, the average increase is 5.8 percent. The news could have been far worse, and its effects will be softened by the University's com- mitment of an additional $5.7 million to financial aid. There is danger, however, that state legislators, seeing tuition increases at state universities despite an increase in state funding this year, will be hesitant to support increases in the future. But, the fact is that inflation in higher educa- tion is always greater than inflation in the economy as a whole. The causes are complex and include expensive research infrastructure, the need for competitive salaries to retain top-notch faculty and something econo- mists call Baumol's cost disease - the existence of greater inflation in fields, such as education, where a reliance on human interaction prevents productivity increases from offsetting increased wages over time. (It takes just as much of a pro- fessor's time to lead a 20-person semi- nar now as it did 100 years ago, despite the rise in the cost of living and thus the professor's wages). The situation is further complicated by the long-term decline in state support. In the past, state appropriations accounted for the majority of the University's general fund. Over recent decades, however, that share has fallen drastically, and increas- ingly, the costs of operating a world-class research university have fallen on students and their families. The situation has not been helped by state cuts over the past four years. Despite this year's small increase, the University is still receiving $37 million less from the state than it did in 2002. For the University, this means that low- and middle-income students are far less likely to even bother applying. Seeing the nominal tuition figure, less-affluent parents may discourage their children from applying, figuring that four years of tuition is far beyond their means, even though, thanks to the University's innova- tive financial aid programs, this often isn't the case. The University needs to make its commitment to financial aid crystal-clear in its application materials and through its recruitment process. The opportuni- ties provided by an elite public university mean little if high tuition leaves the Uni- versity as merely a playground for chil- dren of the rich. The state, meanwhile, ought to boost its commitment to its public universities drastically if it's serious about building the kind of educated workforce needed to ensure Michigan's economic future. The state's traditional dependence on the auto industry is already leading it to economic obsolescence - and Chinese cars haven't even hit the streets yet. One expert, former University President James Duderstadt, suggests increasing funding 30 percent above inflation for the next five years. Given political realities in Lansing, that might not be possible, but at the very least, the state must provide a consistent commitment to what increases it can afford and not return to the cuts that characterized the past four years. ALEXANDER HONKALA Car Q T OP, ,::r':. ^ , *1 IVE ON YOUR FEET IOHN O STAND DOWN OR WE'LL FIREI LET'S STOP FIGHTING OVER WAIT, WHAT THE ELL ARE WE POLITICS AND RELIGION...WE'RE/ I DOING TO EACH OTHER? PRACTICALLY THE SAME PEOPLE SI5..GH ENYWAYI THIS WAY, OUR KIDS WONT 5E PUT THROUGH WHAT' WE HAVEIpoo irt ___ 0l