Here are Gov. Rick Scott's small-government principles at work again -- he wants the state to pick and choose which university majors are more important and shift funding from liberal arts programs toward the state universities' engineering, math, and sciences departments.
Scott's main enemy in the battle: anthropology.
"You know, we don't need a lot more anthropologists in the state," Scott said in an interview on the Marc Bernier Show. "It's a great degree if people want to get it, but we don't need them here. I want to spend our dollars giving people science, technology, engineering, math degrees. That's what our kids need to focus all their time and attention on. Those type of degrees. So when they get out of school, they can get a job."
Now the state's public universities would face even more budget cuts in their liberal arts and social sciences departments if the governor gets his way.
Obviously those degrees never get anyone a job -- like that Ronald Reagan guy who got a bachelor of arts degree in economics. Some guy named Steve Jobs also said he preferred to have employees with knowledge of the liberal arts.
Scott's argument was that it's a waste for taxpayers to fund students getting liberal arts degrees and invited the public to give him more idea for ways taxpayers are getting screwed.
"If anybody has any ideas where they see waste, they see fraud, they see any problems in where the state spends its money, let me know," he said, apparently unaware of his own idea to let the government decide which degree you're pursuing.
Scott wants all that state money to go to the science, technology, engineering, and math fields -- known as "STEM" -- where the governor hopes people will follow in his footsteps by pursuing careers in medicare fraud the free market.
For Scott's specific targeting of anthropology, he's already pissed off the American Anthropological Association, which released this statement:
"Perhaps you are unaware that anthropologists are leaders in our nation's top science fields, making ground breaking discoveries in areas as varied as public health, human genetics, legal history, bilingualism, the African American heritage, and infant learning."
Facebook is already on it -- 22 people have joined a group called "Anthropologists against Rick Scott."
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