Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

Should the people's power to make law be curtailed?

1/30/2019

Should future voter initiatives have to prove they can pay for themselves before people begin collecting signatures? Should they be written in such a way that any tax increases involved are featured prominently, not buried in the text?

These are just some of the questions floating around Utah’s Capitol Hill in response to voters passing a measure last November that makes full Medicaid expansion under Obamacare the law.

Who cuts your lawn, and would you like to pay more?

1/30/2019

Who cuts your grass?

When it comes to any kind of large-scale tax reform, messaging is vital. Utah’s legislative leaders might be able to persuade the public if they could sit down with each person for an hour and go through details and philosophy, but no one has time for that. Instead, it comes down to simple phrases.

And sometimes those miss the mark.

Would more Capitol parking be bad for the air?

1/28/2019

I started the 2019 legislative the way I usually do – by taking FrontRunner to the North Temple Station and grabbing bus No. 500 to the State Capitol.

And, just as in previous years, I sat mostly alone on that bus, with the exception of two or three well-dressed people and, notably, one lawmaker. Together, we took maybe three or four cars off the morning freeway rush, which probably didn’t do much to stem the mounting haze in the valley below.

Drones: If we can't shoot 'em, learn to control 'em

1/23/2019

Five years ago, some far-sighted, if perhaps a bit trigger-happy, people in Deer Trail, Colorado, population 700, had a bright idea. They put a referendum on the ballot that would have allowed people to buy hunting licenses to shoot drones from the sky.

What a simple, practical solution.

Of course, the plan came with a few potential problems. It may be irritating and, as we’ve recently seen, dangerous, to have unmanned mosquito-like machines buzzing overhead, but flying bullets aren’t exactly fun, either.

So it may have been a good thing the referendum failed, but I’ve thought a lot about those folks ever since.

Should people be allowed to overturn city planning?

1/22/2019

The problem is complicated.

On the one hand, it’s getting expensive to live here, as if you needed to be reminded.

The Zillow Home Value Index says the median home price in the Salt Lake metro area rose by 11.1 percent over the past year to $352,300. Even though experts predict the market will soften a bit this year, the median price is expected to grow by another 4.2 percent.

You may expect the trend to continue.

State lawmakers should not mess with voter initiatives

1/16/2019

Only four months have passed since I posed the question, in this column, of whether lawmakers would have the guts to change an initiative passed by voters. That seems like such an innocent time, now.

Back then, the question centered on Proposition 2, the initiative to legalize medical marijuana. I supported efforts to change it, which the Legislature did in a December special session only weeks after voters passed it.

Long-term shutdown could hurt Utah's readiness for recession

1/15/2019

My oldest son, a tenured State Department employee now living in Washington after several years in embassies and consulates abroad, is furloughed.

I hesitate to mention that because he, his wife and their three children are doing fine, unlike some of the federal workers you may have seen on the news lately. They have enough savings to last a while.

Do you have a right to burn wood in the winter?

1/9/2019

Four years ago, about 500 people jammed into the 160-seat Cache County Courthouse to make a point: Don’t take away our right to burn wood in the winter.

That word, “right,” came up, as it did in other hearings around Northern Utah. So did the idea that government was overreaching, according to news reports at the time.

Gov. Gary Herbert had asked the state’s Air Quality Board to see how the public felt about banning wood burning completely between Nov. 1 and March 15 in seven Northern Utah counties susceptible to inversions.

Do Utah lawmakers have the yips about the economy?

1/8/2019

A pessimist won’t truly enjoy good times because he or she is sure bad times are just around the corner.
Or maybe that’s a realist. You decide.

Meanwhile, some of Utah’s political leaders seem to have the yips, to borrow a baseball term. That’s a nervous tension that drives you to distraction.

At a recent Utah Taxpayers Association conference, Senate Budget Chair Jerry Stevenson titled his presentation on the budget year that begins July 1, “Caution: Rough Road Ahead.”

Slowing population growth should concern us all

1/2/2019

1937 — that was the last time the nation’s population growth was as low as it is today.

You should be concerned about this.

If you know anything about history or if, like me, you are old enough to have had parents or grandparents tell you what things were like, you know that 1937 was the year the second wave of the Great Depression hit.

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