Jay Evensen
  • Front Page
  • Opinions
  • Second Thoughts
  • Portfolio
  • Awards
  • About

Tick, tock; where is Utah's tax reform bill?

2/26/2019

0 Comments

 
State Rep. Susan Duckworth went through her annual windmill-tilting exercise Wednesday, trying to get fellow lawmakers to support her bill to make all feminine hygiene products, diapers and similar items exempt from sales taxes in Utah.

The Democrat from Magna has carried this bill unsuccessfully for four years now. On Wednesday, the House Revenue and Taxation Committee listened politely, then voted to hold the bill, effectively killing it once more. This time, however, the reason given was that everyone is waiting on a huge tax-overhaul bill to emerge from somewhere deep within the marbled walls of the State Capitol.
​

About that, two things may be observed.

Read More
0 Comments

Don't freak about recent earthquakes; well maybe a little

2/26/2019

0 Comments

 
Could Utah’s recent little earthquakes trigger a volcano in Yellowstone? Has anyone checked on the dormant volcanoes around our state to see whether they’re getting ready to spew lava? Is my house about to be swallowed? Aaargh!
First, calm down. The answers to the first two, actually posed by worried callers to people at University of Utah seismograph stations, is no.

Read More
0 Comments

Utah's hate crimes bill is needed

2/26/2019

0 Comments

 
In the words of modern day poet Anthony Liccione, “They say, timing is everything. But then they say, there is never a perfect time for anything.”
​

Certainly, there never is any time at all for what Carlo Alazo, a 22-year-old from Tampa, Florida, is accused of doing.

Read More
0 Comments

Sandy's water troubles highlight challenges of 21st century

2/19/2019

0 Comments

 
Of all the things Americans take for granted, water is near the top.

Getting information should should be somewhere near the top, too. After all, this is the Information Age, right?
​

But back to water for a second: We turn the tap and expect an endless supply of life-giving, clean wetness to come out, either hot or cold, depending on how we want it. We shower in it, drink it, brush our teeth with it, cook with it and wash dishes in it. As much as 60 percent of our bodies are made up of the stuff.

Read More
0 Comments

America during WWII's first year has much to teach us

2/18/2019

0 Comments

 
Dark times seems to bring out the worst in Americans. Despite all the outward displays of unity after 9/11, there were calls to round up people of Middle Eastern descent. Members of the Sikh religion, whose men grow long beards and wear turbines but have nothing remotely to do with
the radical fundamentalists who attacked the United States, found themselves the subject of frequent violence. This remains true today.
In that sense, little has changed since the days immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec.


Read More
0 Comments

The debt bomb just keeps ticking away

2/13/2019

0 Comments

 
Quick quiz: When was the following published in a major newspaper?
“While most have been worrying about the public debt and its unwieldy proportions, private debt too has been sneaking up on us … . The situation could make a readjustment in the case of a recession very difficult. It was the attempted liquidation through the market of a vast volume of private debt that brought on the 1929 debacle, at least in large part.”
You probably guessed it wasn’t written yesterday, or I wouldn’t have quoted it. But it could have been. Today’s problems have plenty of echoes from the past.

Read More
0 Comments

Did voters pass Prop 3 because they didn't see tax increase?

2/13/2019

0 Comments

 
You didn’t really think lawmakers would stop after messing with Proposition 3, did you?
Now it’s time to get at what some of them see as the real problem — the initiative process itself.
The thinking goes like this:
Last November, voters were faced with a ballot measure that asked, right up front, if they would raise the gas tax by 10 cents per gallon to help fund education. It failed miserably.

Read More
0 Comments

Why was Prop 3 changed? Voters contradicted themselves

2/11/2019

0 Comments

 
Simply put, the problem is this: Last November, Utah voters contradicted themselves.
On the one hand, they voted to pass Proposition 3, which expanded Medicaid coverage to people earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, as called for under Obamacare.
On the other hand, they voted to put people in charge of the Legislature who, generally speaking, dislike Obamacare and view Medicaid expansion as fiscally irresponsible.
What did you expect would happen?

Read More
0 Comments

Down syndrome abortion bill sends a powerful message

2/11/2019

0 Comments

 
A bill wending its way through the Utah Legislature that would outlaw abortions performed solely because a mother doesn’t want to give birth to a child with Down syndrome may, as its detractors say, be difficult to enforce — but the message it would send is powerful.
​
If it becomes just a so-called “message bill,” consider that it says the people of Utah see children with Down syndrome as having the same sacred value as any other human life.

Read More
0 Comments

Resolution on border security ties committee in knots

2/5/2019

0 Comments

 
When do words strung together equal more than the sum of their parts?

The answer is the same as to the question of when you can get Utah lawmakers to vote against family values. It is when those words enter the twilight zone of partisan politics.
​
Members of the Utah Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee came face to face with a resolution late last week that was virtually dripping with political overtones, as well as traditional Utah family values — quite a load considering the words themselves seemed benign. Scrambling to save face, the committee’s Republican majority took the only safe course — it punted.

Read More
0 Comments
<<Previous

    RSS Feed

    Search this site


    Like what you read here?

      Please subscribe below, and we'll let you know when there is a new opinion.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Picture

    The author

    Jay Evensen is the Senior Editorial Columnist of the Deseret News. He has nearly 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities.

    Archives

    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All
    Campaign 2012
    Congress
    Crime
    Culture
    Iran
    Oil And Gas
    Poverty
    Steroids
    Taxes
    Utah
    Washington
    World Events
    World Events

    Links

    Deseret News
    Newslink
    Marianne Evensen's blog

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.