First of all, Cliff Groh is a liberal Democrat. You are hiding that important fact in your column. Second, the U of A can withstand a lot more budget cuts. This school's budget (like the rest of the State's budget) has skyrocketed since the 1990s. Our State ranks almost dead last in K - 12 school performance so why do you think we need to have a great State College system? We don't. We don't even have enough students able to take high level math classes there. I know a U of A prof and he is frustrated because the higher level math classes keep getting cancelled b/c not enough students enroll. We need to think about big cuts to U of A. Top students can easily go out of state to college. That is the truth. Also, your column seems to forget that many many Alaskans are middle class (not low class and not wealthy) and we don't want an income tax either. We can't afford it. We want a right-sized Gov't for our State. There are too many State employees making too high of salaries.