Blog Archives - Jay Evensen

How much more would you pay for education?

11/29/2016

When it comes to paying state taxes, you’ve got it good, Utah.

You may not agree with that, especially if you just finished sending your annual property tax payment to the county. But your total tax burden is, according to the most recent data, $111.36 per $1,000 in income, which is close to being the lowest it’s been in two decades.

So, not to get all wonky on you (I know how you all love doing math), but here’s another number to

Why Utah's volunteering spirit matters

11/28/2016

Maybe it’s no longer a surprise, or even newsworthy, when Utah gets noted as the nation’s most generous state. However, Wallet Hub’s latest ranking of generosity and voluntarism, again ranking Utah No.1, is worth noting mainly because it was such a slam dunk.

Utah scored No. 1 for its volunteer rate, for its percentage of income donated, and for the percentage of people who claim to have donated

Learning to appreciate what police officers do

11/23/2016

I don’t pretend to know what a law-enforcement officer goes through each day. I can’t understand the stress of knowing that, while most people view your uniform as a comfort, some view it as a threat.

But I tried to get a taste of it recently. I submitted myself to a training session with a computer simulator known as VirTra. Training specialist William Fowlke of the Utah attorney general’s office told me more than 900 officers from all agencies statewide have taken the same test.

No, Utah voter turnout was not down this year

11/16/2016

Interpreting election results is hard, and it’s especially so when your state is considered in play.

Remember how, after waiting weeks for people in Florida to interpret chads in 2000, the nation was supposed to turn to touch-screen computers that would make results instantaneous? The big worry in the future would be how to keep folks in California from knowing who won before they even left work.

Well, forget that. The future is here, and many of us vote by mail with a low-tech pen. A chunk of ballots aren’t delivered until after Election Day. It takes time to count them. More than a week on, we still don’t have final answers.

John Florez made the world better, even on his deathbed

11/15/2016

All I really needed to know about John Florez I learned only hours before his death last week.

Having heard he was home receiving hospice care, unable to stand on the legs that had carried him from his humble beginnings as a child raised in an abandoned rail car on Salt Lake’s west side to the highest halls of power in Washington, Deseret News editor Paul Edwards and I came to pay a visit.

Why Americans won't abandon the penny

11/14/2016

India’s prime minister issued a directive last week that immediately invalidated two of that country’s most popular cash notes. Just like that, the 1,000 and 500 rupee bills were worthless.

Meanwhile, in the United States, taxpayers continue to pay the bill for minting pennies no one seems to use. Clearly, Americans are more sentimental about their money than are people in India, or than people just about anywhere else, for that matter.

According to news reports, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India had a couple of

Clinton's popular vote aside, the Electoral College is good

11/9/2016

As I write this, it looks as if it has happened again. For the fifth time in U.S. history, and the second time in 16 years, someone has been elected to the White House despite losing the popular vote.

Deadlines force me to write this on Wednesday, when the latest results show Hillary Clinton with about 200,000 more votes than Donald Trump nationwide — an amazingly thin margin considering about 120 million ballots have been counted. He, however, has a clear and convincing margin in the Electoral College, and that’s all that matters.

You can outhit the other team or commit fewer errors, but only runs really count in baseball, and only electoral votes really count in the race for president.

Crazy? Actually, it’s genius.

The election is over; where is the apocalypse?

11/9/2016

Judging by what I’ve read on social media for the past year or two, many of you must have been surprised to wake up this morning and see the sun shining.

This wasn’t supposed to happen, was it? Depending on which side you listened to, the country was supposed to be destroyed by now or engulfed in a

Other states' marijuana referenda will affect Utah

11/7/2016

Five states will be voting Tuesday on whether to legalize recreational marijuana use among adults. Three of these — California, Nevada and Arizona — are in the West. Together with Colorado, which already legalized the drug, this could serve to almost surround Utah, which likely would result in more of the drug, and its problems, coming into the state.

Despite how many Americans seem to be buying the argument that marijuana is a safe and harmless drug, there is evidence to suggest its legalization leads to an increase in problems. Those problems come to Utah, as its borders provide quick access to markets where marijuana may be legally purchased.

The Spectrum in St. George quoted Logan Reid, director of Prevention and Education Services at the Southwest Behavioral Health Center, saying the southern part of the state is seeing effects from laws in other states.

The budget deficit — an issue no candidate wants to tackle

11/2/2016

You don’t have to search far on the Internet to find budget games that let you try your hand at setting the nation on a sustainable fiscal course. The underlying message is always the same — it ain’t easy, especially if you are a rigid political ideologue.

And who isn’t, these days?

The problem isn’t so much that your choices on Tuesday’s ballot are between candidates who promise never to raise taxes and those who promise never to cut entitlements — although this

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