Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

Ever-changing homeless plans make things even harder

2/28/2017

In politics, everything is negotiable.

The folks in Sugar House seemed to understand this when they protested Salt Lake City’s supposedly non-negotiable decision to place a new “homeless services resource center” in their midst.

As we learned late last week, the concrete in which that decision was set crumbled easily and suddenly as state lawmakers and the mayors of Salt Lake City and county formulated a new plan. It was the second time things have changed. Proposed city shelters have gone from two with 250 beds each to four with 150 beds and back to two, this time with 200 beds each.

Few things, it seems, are as negotiable as homeless shelters along the Wasatch Front, and that could pose a problem.

You can't argue to tax groceries without sounding cruel

2/28/2017

Republican legislative leaders seem almost passionate about returning the full sales tax to groceries in Utah as part of a tax reform package that has yet to emerge from closed-door negotiating sessions.

The three main arguments for doing so, however, wouldn’t exactly qualify anyone for the compassionate conservative hall of fame.

Let’s look at them:

1. Taxing food at the full state rate would help fund programs for the poor during bad economic times.
This one usually is accompanied by explanations as to how taxing food makes the sales tax more stable. When times are bad, people stop buying cars and furniture, but they have to buy food. The state loses a lot of revenue by keeping groceries at the partial 1.75 percent tax rate, rather than the full 4.7 percent rate.

As a tax policy, this is correct. Sales taxes are far more volatile than property or income taxes. But when lawmakers tie a food tax to programs for the poor, alarms ought to start ringing.

Lawmakers set funding priorities based on what

Undoing a monument would have consequences

2/22/2017

Monumental questions abound.

Can a president undo the national monument designation of a previous president?

Actually, that one may be a bit premature, even though it’s being asked in a lot of corridors of power and by news organizations nationwide.

The more relevant question at the moment may be, will President Donald Trump actually rescind Barack Obama’s designation of the Bears Ears National Monument in Southern Utah? And the question that generally follows is, will he then reduce the size of the Grand Staircase-Escalante Monument?

But a larger, overriding question waits in the wings. If the president succeeds in undoing a monument designation — which never has been done — how would that change the way future presidents use

Town hall protests echo the tea party of 2009

2/21/2017

The town hall meeting essentially ended before it started — a victim of an out-of-control audience.

People screamed and waved signs. They wouldn’t let the congressman on stage talk. He couldn’t get through more than a word or two of an answer without his voice being drowned. Within an hour, he had left the stage, needing a police escort to get safely to his car.

Should Utah lower the DUI limit to .05 blood alcohol?

2/14/2017

I don’t drink alcohol, but my friends who do tell me about the guessing game.

How many drinks do you guess someone can have before reaching the legal limit of .08 percent blood alcohol content?

It’s not an easy game to play. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission published a chart to help provide answers, but it looks like something your accountant might review while figuring your taxes, and it’s just as ambiguous.

Let’s say you weigh only 100 pounds. One drink would bring you to .04, but you probably would be impaired. Someone weighing 240 pounds, on the other hand, would need two drinks to hit .03, which would land him or her in the “possibly influenced” category. Such a person would need five drinks to be legally drunk, but would have passed the impaired stage at only three.

What do the terms “impaired” and “possibly influenced” mean? That’s not clear, but the bottom

Tax hike initiative -- presentation is everything

2/14/2017

Presentation is everything. At least, a lot of Utah lawmakers believe that’s true when it comes to tax increases.

Last summer, an opinion poll published by Utahpolicy.com asked Utahns how they would feel about raising the income tax by seven-eighths of 1 percent, from a rate of 5 percent to 5 7/8 percent, to add more funding for public schools. About 64 percent said they were at least somewhat in favor of this, which emboldened the “Our schools now”

How easy should it be for government to seize property?

2/7/2017

Morality plays teach us crime doesn’t pay. You may wonder about that if you’ve ever visited John Dillinger’s grave in Indianapolis, where visitors regularly drop coins on his marker.

If you become popular enough in folklore, or if you can afford the right attorneys, morality plays are mere fairy tales.

For Dillinger, the irony is that he no longer can do anything with the money, which goes back to the original point.

Paying sales taxes online won't stop you from buying

2/1/2017

Stores and malls are dying from coast to coast. That’s hardly a secret, and it’s not really up for debate.

This trend may vary a bit from state to state, but if you drive down a major road with big-box retailers you’re likely to see it in action — or perhaps in inaction.

After you’re done doing that, examine how often you drive to shop today versus 10 years ago. Then look at how much you buy online.

What is up for debate is what government can do about it. When stores die, sales taxes go with them. Governments rely on those taxes, and even though Utah has long required people to voluntarily pay taxes on purchases they make remotely, few do.

Utah lawmakers once again are attempting to fix this by requiring online sellers to pay taxes. They

You could be asked to legalize marijuana in Utah, if Trump hasn't arrested everyone in states that already did so

2/1/2017

By the end of next year, Utah voters might be asked whether to legalize marijuana use for medicinal purposes.

Then again, everyone involved in the budding marijuana industry in the 29 states that have legalized a form of it might be in jail by then, hoping family members will hide a file or two in a batch of brownies during their next visit.

That could, of course, affect how you might vote on such a referendum. It’s also indicative of how uncertain lawmakers in every state are right now about this issue, which never has been officially

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