Jay Evensen - Opinions

Tax reform's big problem: It would hurt the poor

1/22/2020

It wasn’t that Utahns didn’t understand the problem.
People get that sales tax revenues, in a changing economy, aren’t growing as fast as income tax revenues, and that the state constitution handcuffs lawmakers by requiring all income taxes go toward schools.
It wasn’t that Utahns misunderstood all they have to gain through the tax reform bill lawmakers passed in a special session last month. The flat rate income tax dropped from 4.95% to 4.66%, and despite increases in several other taxes, experts said most people would see a net reduction in what they pay state government.

Does a crowded GOP gubernatorial primary mean a crisis for democracy?

1/21/2020

You don’t need 20/20 vision to know that an election year has started. Nor, if you’re paying attention, do you need perfect eyesight to know it probably won’t be like any election year you have experienced.
A new poll by NPR/Marist/PBS News Hour this week painted an alarming picture. It found 41% of Americans think the nation is unprepared to make sure Election Day will be safe and secure.
Even more of a worry — two-thirds of Democrats think this is so, while only 15% of Republicans agree. If election safety no longer crosses party lines, the nation may be in trouble no matter what the final tally says.

Why the Jeopardy! tournament was a good sign for the U.S.

1/15/2020

The answer is: It attracted about 15 million viewers per episode.
The question? Why was the just-completed “Jeopardy! The Greatest of All Time” tournament such a good sign for America?
That kind of viewership, as Deseret News writer Lottie Johnson put into perspective Wednesday morning, is at a level similar to the audiences the NBA Finals and the World Series tend to draw.
Perhaps this tells us something about ourselves that we have been conditioned not to believe. Brain sports can be big money.

Here's how the governor would change education in Utah

1/14/2020

Gov. Gary Herbert has quietly raised, once again, what may be the most important question concerning public schools in Utah — one that goes directly to what one former Democratic lawmaker once told me was the state’s “dirty little secret.”
It is: Who controls education in Utah?

As I told you, fears about a .05 DUI law were unfounded

1/8/2020

I hate to say I told you so.
But, I told you so.
I told you, two years ago, that Utah’s first-in-the-nation law reducing the official drunk-driving level to a .05 blood alcohol content would have little impact on anything, other than to save some lives. Because you can’t count lives that weren’t lost, you won’t see any headlines about that one. We do know, however, that all the frantic warnings about innocent people behind bars and hits to tourism were wrong.

Why will Utah soon make gas much more expensive?

1/7/2020

Why is the state of Utah loading the price of gasoline with so many taxes?
If you didn’t know this is coming, you soon will.
The newly passed tax reform law will, for the first time, apply sales taxes to gasoline which, when the law takes full effect later this spring, could add as much as 11 cents to each gallon purchased. And the State Tax Commission, using a formula set forth in state law, announced that the regular gas tax also would go up by 1.1 cents per gallon, to a total of 31.1 cents, in the new year.

Why the '10s was the best decade ever

1/2/2020

In 1959, the average pop can contained 85 grams of aluminum, and recycling, for the most part, was just a word in the dictionary.
Today, a pop can contains 13 grams of aluminum, and most of it is recycled.
That’s just one tidbit uncovered by science writer Matt Ridley in a recent edition of the British publication The Spectator.
Ridley’s argument is that we’ve just finished the best decade in the history of mankind.
He’s right. It’s also the latest in a long line of best decades.

As the '20s begin to roar, will we listen to the past?

12/31/2019

Sometimes, the rearview mirror can teach lessons.
Travel with me back 100 years from last night. No matter what you were doing to usher in 2020, it probably couldn’t compare with downtown Salt Lake City at the dawn of 1920. The Deseret News described it as “a sort of Mardi Gras on Main Street.” Revelers wore masks and fancy caps “and an assortment of highly colored decorations.” They threw confetti on each other and made noise with cowbells, fish horns, tin cans attached to strings and ratchet wheels.

America's debt - the challenge of the 2002 election

12/26/2019

Consider Venezuela, a place where, according to recent news reports, the currency has become so worthless that people across the border in Colombia are using it to make wallets and purses.
You can get a coin purse made with 100 bolivares for a reasonable price, a Fox News report said. If the artisan needs more materials, he just sends his brother back to Venezuela to stuff his pockets with more.

Tax reform veto is doomed to fail

12/18/2019

One group will count on volunteers to gather the signatures needed to overturn Utah’s new tax reform law. The other group says that’s naive and promises to use paid signature gatherers; but it admits that, as yet, it has no money.
Naive is as naive does, I suppose. But if both efforts go forward as described in a Deseret News report Tuesday, I wouldn’t count on seeing a tax reform veto on your 2020 ballot, no matter how angry you may feel about it.

weebly statistics

weebly reliable statistics

weebly statistics