By
Thomas Cloud
February 4, 2010
In high school, I began hearing about how comparatively small the U.S. president’s salary is — the president makes $400,000 a year. Often this simple fact gets taken out of context and is used as a cudgel against anyone who makes more than the president when he clearly has the world’s most important job. Lately, I hear it used against Mark Emmert by people who misguidedly believe that cutting Emmert’s salary is the solution to all of our budget problems. Coincidentally, I never hear them call for slashing the higher salary of Steve Sarkisian, but they’d probably never get anywhere with that.
Emmert actually makes much less than President Obama if you look beyond simple income for duties performed. Obama is famous, and his fame virtually guarantees lifetime riches. Even if we found out Obama’s books really were ghostwritten, they would still make him millions, especially now that they are creeping in as required readings in public schools. When he leaves office, President Obama will be awarded an annual pension equal to the pay of a cabinet secretary: currently, $193,300. President Obama will also have some travel expenses paid and be provided with a stipend for a personal staff, a fully paid state funeral, as well as medical benefits. Obama will still be famous, too, and he will make quite a lot of cash just for showing up to places. Bill Clinton, who is far less of a pop-culture icon than Obama, regularly makes more than $100,000 for speeches.
Don’t forget that while Obama is in office, his entire daily needs will be provided for luxuriously in the White House, essentially a fully functioning palace. His salary is just fun money. We could pay him the value of the goods he’s provided with, but that would increase his ability to influence, peddle or tempt him to form private para-government armies. That sounds extreme, but we do the same thing with our generals. With generals, we limit their media exposure to make it even harder to perform a coup d’état. Do you know the joint chiefs of staff off of the top of your head, or do you need to look them up?
Conversely, a president will also try to shield some of his associates from the press in order to have more influence. Look at some of the people our current president has placed around himself. Van Jones — a (hopefully) former Marxist who, in 2004, signed a petition that suggested the U.S. government helped terrorists commit the Sept. 11 attacks — resigned in September after a four-month stint as the special adviser for green jobs, enterprise and innovation. John Holdren, Obama’s science czar, wrote in his 1973 book Human Ecology that “the fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being.”
You might visit Emmert’s blog once in a while, instead of falsely complaining he makes more than Obama. Watch him speak before the legislature, and then compare him to other university presidents — we have the best guy. While the relative merit of subsidized universities is another topic for another time, it is purely lying to claim that Emmert isn’t fighting the budget cuts. Emmert deserves every bit of his salary, and for the record, I think he’s doing a fine job.
Reach columnist Thomas Cloud at opinion@dailyuw.com.
16 Comments
#1 Ariel W.
on February 3, 2010 at 11:29 p.m.(Seattle, WA | UW Community)
With Obama's bestsellers, he is probably richer than Emmert. But this editorial ignores all of Mark Emmert's presidential perks. He brings in more bucks than his $900,000 salary. According to a 2008 Seattle Times article, he makes an extra $340,000 a year from serving on corporate boards for Expeditors International and Weyerhaeuser. Plus he has housing and transportation covered; he lives in the Hillcrest Manor and has his own chauffeur.
Who said cutting Emmert's salary is THE solution to the budget cuts? I haven't seen anyone advocate that alone as the solution, but simply part of many structural changes at UW and the state. A pay cut would also have a lot of symbolic power. Instead, administrators continue to make 6 figures while people who make peanuts, like custodians and writing center tutors, get laid off.
#2 Brian_Cox
on February 4, 2010 at 7:38 a.m.(Tacoma, WA)
Let's not forget some very important facts. Emmert's position is not a political position. It is a position he is hired for, and accordingly the University must be competitive with that hiring.
The price of executives is determined the same way all prices are determined: supply and demand. The job market has dictated that people who can organize and manage resources to the skill level of Mark Emmert will be paid a certain price based on their worth to the organization. And that price has worth to the organization which benefits from his organization. If you would rather not pay him what you do, Mark has the option of being paid even more money from industry.
I say, "Don't be stupid!" Don't push away good management because of a mob-mentality of hatred. Good management is worth more to any organization than good labor will ever be!
#3 Charles
on February 4, 2010 at 8:27 a.m.(UW Campus | Unverified Name | UW Community)
Why does the daily continue to run pieces about, or in some way connected to Emmert's compensation? Even if we took it all away it wouldn't compare to the cuts coming down the pipeline from Olympia. Rather than writing about this vanity stuff (protestors, pay, boards, etc.) where are the op-eds about how Olympia is going to gut work study and other financial aid? Shouldn't you be using this space to speak out to our legislators and other Washingtonians about the dire situation that our colleges and universities have ahead?
If the daily merely lacks the intellectual muscle to engage the issue I'm sure you can find more than a few student leaders with the facts to write op-eds.
#4 Brian_Cox
on February 4, 2010 at 9:40 a.m.(Tacoma, WA)
Why would every student have to have YOUR opinion about what Olympia should be doing?
Couldn't it be that writers for the Daily don't think it should be an issue...because larger issues are at stake: economy as a whole, lowering the tax burden on a suppressed economic system.
Not everyone believes that students should be rushing to Olympia with the attitude of "give me, give me."
#5 Charles
on February 4, 2010 at 3:16 p.m.(Location Unknown | Unverified Name | UW Community)
Brian you missed the point. These stories I referred to that the daily continues to write rest upon the fact that money is tight on campus. Also note that is is an Op-Ed for Opinion and editorial, the parts of the paper in which Opinion pieces are written. Further note that as the paper of record for students the daily is partially tasked with writing about issues that impact us and just like candidates are supported solutions to fiscal problems can be as well.
Further, I didn't write what position the daily should take on the facts. I wrote that they should write about what is going to happen. It isn't an opinion that as of now the budgets and bills for next fiscal year gut State aid and work study. Those are facts.
The point is that I know a lot of people are tired of hearing about President Emmert's pay as a way to mollify anger over budget cuts rather than talk about where the millions of dollars in cuts came from. Which yes includes the financial situation, but the daily isn't writing much about that either.
#6 And then, Obama gave me coal for Christmas
on February 4, 2010 at 6:44 p.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name | UW Community)
You know in the Looney Tunes when the wolf is chasing a chicken or something and it turns into a fully roasted chicken with steam rising off of it? This is what I imagine happens when Thomas Cloud looks at ANYTHING, except instead of a fully roasted steaming chicken, he sees Obama.
If he has a girlfriend, this adds an interesting quality to this phenomenon.
Geez. Do you even realize?
#7 Brian_Cox
on February 5, 2010 at 1:41 p.m.(UW Campus | UW Community)
Well, Charles, the socialist and communist groups on campus continuously attack Emmert's pay. So it's a pretty legitimate point of discussion.
Most of the Daily's comments tend to discuss what's going on here. I really don't see anything wrong with that.
#8 Sean K.
on February 5, 2010 at 4:39 p.m.(Bellevue, WA | UW Community)
The bar is low at the Daily. Every week I am astonished at what passes for critical commentary here.
Mr. Cloud - Mark Emmert makes more than President Obama. Period. By a lot. Not even close.
Moreover, what someone "makes", in terms of salary and associated benefits, is a generally understood as income per annum. As in this year. The year before and the year after. That Obama may make a significant income as a lobbyist, a spokesman, a CEO, and professor, a carpenter or a ditch-digger has NO BEARING on what he "makes" now.
Let's erase the scribbling Mr. Beck leftover on the chalkboard and compare the figures:
President Barack Obama
Salary: $400,000
Expense account: $50,000
Travel account: $100,000
Retirement: $19,000
Total compensation, 2009: $569,000
UW President Mark Emmert
(Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html... )
As UW President:
Base salary: $620,000
Deferred compensation: $250,000
Retirement match: $23,000
Car allowance: $12,000
Total UW compensation: $905,000
Weyerhaeuser director
Cash: $70,000
Stock: $70,000
Total: $140,000
Expeditors International director
Stock: $200,000
Total: $200,000
Total compensation for 2009: $1,245,000
#9 Brian_Cox
on February 6, 2010 at 7:24 a.m.(Tacoma, WA | UW Community)
But Sean, Mark Emmert has qualifications that could get him an even better job in the real world. He is a proven executive. It's not a political position.
#10 Brian_Cox
on February 6, 2010 at 7:36 a.m.(Tacoma, WA | UW Community)
Oh, and as long as you're including money made on the side for Mark Emmert, you need to edit your numbers for Obama to include book sales.
Also, doesn't the president make 150,000 per year as a retirement after leaving office? Oh and there's also 150,000 per year to maintain a staff after leaving the office. You neglected to annualize these benefits. Plus there is money for the first lady.
Wow! You were really sloppy with those numbers, Sean.
#11 Sean K.
on February 6, 2010 at 10:05 a.m.(Seattle, WA | UW Community)
Books sales are not associated with Obama's duties as a President, Brian. The sales of his book are a function of his celebrity (and his personal story). Sarah Palin wrote a book too. So did Jesus (or his ghostwriters did anyways).
Let's talk salary, as an employee, for 2009, 2010, 2011, etc. Mark Emmert is the second-highest paid university president in the country. He makes more than twice - in salary and associated benefits - than the the President of the United States of America.
Retirement - yes, but when Obama is retired, he will make, per year, a fraction of what the president of the University of Washington will receive as a salary.
The debate about salary is a debate about values, which apart from the macro-economic arguments represent what we consider most important socially. Your 'real world' apparently doesn't include academia or government. Why is that?
#12 Steve Heidenreich
on February 6, 2010 at 2:11 p.m.(Sammamish, WA | Unverified Name | UW Community)
What people forget is that we pay Mark Emmert that much for a reason: He's one of the very best at what he does, and if we DON'T pay him that much, he'll go to a university that WILL.
#13 Sean K.
on February 6, 2010 at 3:54 p.m.(Seattle, WA | UW Community)
Steve - If he were to stay in the public university system, there is nowhere to go and not take a significant paycut (except Ohio State)
The assumption that his pay validates his worth and his worth is exemplified by his pay is a tired trope that CEO's and their peers have employed to justify the corporate cult of 'leadership'.
There is no way to determine that, if Emmert were paid half of what he is paid now, the UW would be in a different situation in terms of funding, tuition rates, library resource reductions, staff cuts; or that it would be run any less efficiently and conscientiously than it is now.
What could be argued, however, is that at half his rate it would reflect a more equitable salary scale vis-a-vis the thousands of people that make the UW a working, viable, and meaningful institution:
(correction from previous posts - Mark Emmert is #2 for public universities in terms of salary and benefits; for a list of the top ten private college/university presidents: http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/02/news/...)
The public university executive compensation rankings below - [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010822316_collegecomp18m.html]
1. Ohio State/E. Gordon Gee/ $1,576,825
2. U. of Washington/Mark Emmert/ $905,004
3. U. of Delaware/Patrick T. Harker/ $810,603
4. U. of Virginia/John Casteen III/ $797,048
5. U. of Texas system/Francisco Cigarroa/ $787,258
6. U. of Michigan system/Mary Sue Coleman/ $783,850
7. U. of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center/M. Roy Wilson/ $753,615
8. Virginia Tech/Charles Steger/ $732,064
9. Auburn/G. Jay Gogue/ $727,761
10. Arizona State/Michael Crow/ $709,196
#14 Brian_Cox
on February 6, 2010 at 7:17 p.m.(Tacoma, WA | UW Community)
Ok, so book sales aren't part of Obama's duties as President.
So could you elaberate on why you included Mark Emmert's pay from Weyerhaeuser and Expeditors?
I was under the impression that you would want to be consistent...since you were all like, "How dare you be inaccurate, Thomas!" ...
#15 Sean K.
on February 6, 2010 at 8:18 p.m.(Location Unknown | Unverified Name | UW Community)
Okay Brian - touche. Losing interest in this one. Let's wait till the next neo-con column (sure to be in the next issue, or in every issue of the Daily) and take it up on another topic.
#16 Brian_Cox
on February 7, 2010 at 5:32 a.m.(Tacoma, WA | UW Community)
=) fair enough.
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