Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

Scared of coronavirus? How about the flu?

1/29/2020

Imagine a disease that strikes the United States at the onset of winter and that, by the end of January, has sickened 15 million people and killed 8,200. What would be the reaction?
Would people demand a vaccine? Would they wear masks and refuse to mingle with crowds? Would Jazz games and other sporting events be empty because of concern? Would businesses tell workers to stay home and do their jobs over the internet?
The truth is, such a disease already has struck. It’s just that we call it the flu, which makes it sound like yesterday’s disease — something most of us have had a time or two. Few people care. Crowded places? Bring ‘em on.

In Utah, 'people power' is still alive and well, within limits

1/28/2020

Every time the people of Utah pass a law through an initiative or, as happened this week, force lawmakers to repeal a law through the threat of a referendum, I wonder whether Sherman S. Smith is smiling somewhere.
Smith was a member of the Legislature at the start of the 20th century. It may have been one of the few times in the state’s history when he could have been elected, even in his native Ogden. Smith was a populist who, from the sources I’ve read, was not too popular with his fellow lawmakers.
For that reason, he might have enjoyed sticking it to lawmakers more than 100 years in the future.

Utah tax reform? Nothing to see here; move along!

1/27/2020

In an absurdly funny scene from one of the Naked Gun series of movies, a car chase ends with the bad guy smashing his car into a gas truck, then colliding with a military vehicle carrying a missile, and finally, while somehow riding on the missile, crashing into a fireworks factory.
While massive explosions from the rubble send projectiles in all directions, Sgt. Frank Drebin (played by Leslie Nielsen) looks ridiculous as he stands in front of it all and tells a gathering crowd, “Nothing to see here! Please disburse!”
Utah lawmakers aren’t exactly pretending there is nothing to see in the rubble of tax reform, which took a year of legislative wrangling to become law but will likely be ignominiously repealed entirely this week.

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.

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