SAY WHAT?

"We're not in the compromising business. We're not in the negotiating business."

Nevada University system chancellor Jim Rogers, LEFT, again daring Gov. Jim Gibbons last week to trim the state's university budgets in the face of declining revenues. So far, Mr. Rogers' defiance has won the universities a 36 percent budget cut.

"It's not a proposal that makes any sense. I basically reject it as a starting point."

UNLV President David Ashley, joining Chancellor Rogers Monday in declaring the state's elected Legislature and governor have no authority to trim the university's tax-funded budget.

"There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jump-start the economy."

PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, JAN. 9

"With all due respect, Mr. President, that is not true. Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression. ... To improve the economy, policy makers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth."

Jan. 28 open letter to Barack Obama signed by more than 150 university economists including James Cardon and Brennan Platt of Brigham Young University; John Cochrane and Michael Gibbs of the University of Chicago; John Dobra of the University of Nevada, Reno; Tomasz Piskorski of Columbia University; Walter Williams of George Mason University, and Nobel laureates James Buchanan, Edward Prescott and Vernon Smith.