While legislatures across the country are trying to repair state budgets, a team of 20 men and women, led by MSU President M. Peter McPherson, is trying to rebuild the economy of a broken nation.
In April, it was announced McPherson was tapped by the Bush administration to head the financial reconstruction of Iraq.
McPherson's plan is to return to his MSU post by September, but creating a free-market economy in a formerly oppressive dictatorship is something that will probably take more than three months. McPherson should stay in Iraq until his job is done.
Financial experts are saying McPherson didn't leave himself enough time to finish his job in Iraq. It's going to take many months to balance the budget in Michigan; imagine how long it will take to rebuild a nation's economy.
His team still has a lot of work to do. Civil servants are just starting to get paid after more than two months after President Bush declares the war over. The team is just now finding out how much Saddam Hussein's assets total and how much debt he owes and where. The dinar, Iraq's currency, still bears Saddam's face.
It would be better for McPherson to stay and do a thorough job so he can return by the beginning of the school year. It's bad practice to start a job you can't finish.
That's not to say McPherson isn't qualified to perform his assignment. He was hired based on his expertise in the field of finances. McPherson is a former deputy secretary for the U.S. Treasury Department under Ronald Reagan and an executive for Bank of America Corp.
It's the responsibility of the United States and all their officials to help Iraq and its citizens get back on their feet.
A war began on March 20 that tore through a nation already on its knees from U.N. sanctions, dating back to 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait.
Now that the war has been declared over, the United States is obligated to give Iraqis a helping hand, and repair the basic services a brutal war took away from innocent citizens.
The university has a very qualified interim president. With Provost Lou Anna Simon filling McPherson's shoes the university president can take his time in Iraq and do the job right.
By completing his task, and doing a good job while he's at it, McPherson gives MSU something great to brag about and add to its résumé. Not many universities can claim their presidents were involved in the financial rebuilding of a foreign nation.
Being that riots are the last large event MSU is nationally known for, it's good our president is involved in the noble cause of helping people climb out of a hole dug by war.
While McPherson isn't necessarily anxious to leave Iraq and get back to MSU, he should see this project through to the end, and help himself, a country and a university in the process.
